The Legacy of Four
by wild spanish eyes
Summary: Post DH minus the epilogue. A year after the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry recieves a cryptic warning. It's not over. Someone has been left out of the equation that could mean the downfall of the fragile order assembled post-Voldemort. Please R & R.
1. Chapter 1: Someone Else's Nightmare

Disclaimer: Nothing here is mine…the originality and the credit all goes to J.K Rowling…Thank you for reminding an entire world how to imagine and dream…

**Chapter One: Someone Else's Nightmare **

The darkness was absolute…overwhelming.

There was nothing there--nothing except for a lingering sense of fright, as if from a nightmare only moments dissipated, and yet he felt something unseen rushing in at him from all directions, pushing him to the point of pure terror. He could see nothing. All his senses failed him completely. There was no faint breeze or distant points of light to tell him where he was. There was no smell of stagnant humidity in the air that would indicate that he was below ground. There was no explanation at all for this silent, sightless, crushing darkness.

And suddenly there was a faint blue glow in the distance, and soft marked footsteps. Someone was coming in the darkness. Footsteps echoed upon more footsteps as the deathly blue light grew closer but not stronger—never bright enough to illuminate faces or eliminate fear. Instead, it seemed to radiate fear as the black silhouettes of several figures paused just beyond his line of sight and the faint whisper of voices came to his straining ears. He tried to turn his head toward the light and panic overtook him as he realized that his arms and legs were bound. The ropes tightened as he writhed. He was caught…again, after so much time.

Icy horror shot through him as he searched the row of vigilant shadows for the snake-like red eyes that he knew were somewhere very near. The ropes continued to tighten, burning his skin. A sudden tugging sensation revealed to him the presence of another rope slowly tightening around his neck and a fresh wave of panic washed over him. One thought clouded his mind.

_Not again! _

_Never again! _

And he searched desperately in his memory for any spell that would free him from these cutting ropes. They seemed to glow the same blue as the disembodied light that accompanied his captors. With dismay, he realized that all his thoughts were quickly focusing only on that blue. There was a quick flash to a distant Defense Against the Dark Arts class where a short, sinister-looking witch was explaining something about Brainbinding Cloth…

"…_often used in wizarding prisons to subdue tendencies to resist..." _

And then it was gone. He resisted, trying to remember any spells—anything at all that could help him now, and his mind jumped instinctively to the first spell that he had ever learned.

_Crucio! _

He thought it as hard as he could, but of course there was no wand to be found. The rope's glow strengthened. They twisted and tightened and burned. The spell was disappearing from his memory—being replaced by a terrible blue oblivion.

"Crucio!" he shouted desperately at no one in particular as the last memory of the last spell left him.

His curse was met with worried laughter, as if the sound of the force behind it was enough to make some forget that it was spoken without a wand. The dark figures were moving now...growing larger with each ominous step forward, blocking light and sight, and he cringed as he felt many pairs of eager hands clutching at him.

He found his voice and screamed, but it was silenced as the ropes tightened around his neck, cutting off all air as he gathered the force necessary to raise the scream to the levels of insanity that he felt inside him—cutting off all breath, and life, and memory of all things good—cutting off thought, and suddenly he was falling into the same darkness that he had awoken to only moments ago...

But this time, his senses did not fail him. This time he felt something horribly familiar--something that overtook him and invaded every thought that his panicked mind would allow. It came in a blinding painful flash, originating as always, from a lightning shaped scar. This time, it did not come from his infamous forehead, but seemed to burn directly from his heart, doubling him over even as the ropes tightened more and eliminating everything except for one horrifying moment of memory...

A bright flash of green light and a horrible high pitched laughter, and then...nothing.

* * *

Harry's scar was on fire!

He clamped a clammy hand to his forehead and rolled to his side, momentarily unable to process anything more than the pain. He stayed for several moments in a fetal position, gritting his teeth and feeling the dreadfully familiar pulse flow from his forehead down through his entire body. He half expected to slip into darkness again and find himself back in the Dark Forest, surrounded by Death Eaters watching with morbid fascination as The Dark Lord and The Boy Who Lived faced off for what promised to be the final time. Such a strong, piercing pain could mean only one thing--Voldemort was still alive. His grim defeat had only been a fleeting dream, and now Harry had awoken into a world where he still faced his horrifying destiny.

But the pain began to slowly subside, and the only darkness that Harry found was the tranquil red-black caused by his own tightly closed eyes. He could not remember where he had fallen asleep, and for a moment, as the pain became no more than a dull throb, he imagined a horrible blue light and faces in the darkness. His eyes snapped open.

Warm morning sunlight greeted him, and he had to close his eyes again to allow them to adjust. He was lying in the grass behind Ron's home. It had only been a nightmare--the ropes; the darkness...even the evil green flash at the end. Now, with a fragrant breeze carrying away the morning dew around him, he felt the panic of it leaving him, and he began to wonder if the pain in his scar had been only part of the nightmare. As if in response, his scar twinged--only a flash, and then gone again. He frowned and opened his eyes again to the daylight.

What he saw caused the frown to retreat instantly. Strewn around him, all still peacefully sleeping, were nearly everyone that he had grown to love in the wizarding world. Ginny, with her fiery red hair, was smiling in her sleep next to him. Her hand was stretched toward Harry, and he had a faint memory of falling asleep hand in hand. Ron and Hermione were not far away, huddled together underneath the invisibility cloak for warmth. The half visible pair appeared to have fallen asleep in each other's arms.

Just beyond Ron and Hermione lay Bill and Fleur, floating inches above the ground on a beautiful Moroccan carpet. Bill was just beginning to stir. He smiled sleepily over at Harry, and sat up, taking care not to disturb his wife, who looked incredibly comfortable beside him. She was already showing signs of the couple's first child, due in four more months.

A heavy snore to his right caused Harry to turn. He found Neville sleeping soundly in spite of the garden gnomes who seemed to be enjoying a rather vigorous game of King of the Mountain on his rising and falling chest. Luna was fully awake and smiling guiltily toward Harry, who had the sneaking suspicion that she had been playing along with the gnomes. He stifled a laugh.

George was asleep only a few meters away with his head perched comically on Percy's shoulder. The scene would have been sarcastically angelic had it not been for George's new ear. Since losing one of his ears nearly two years ago, George had taken up a rather eclectic collection of right ears, which he randomly attached to his face using a Binding charm. This morning, George was sporting what looked to be a Goblin ear. Harry silently wished for a camera.

Satisfied that there was no immediate danger, he lay down again, closed his eyes, and tried to remember the details of the nightmare that had caused his scar to ache after so much time. He could remember cold blue ropes, and panic in the darkness, but nothing more in such a warm morning light. It was as if his mind was purposely disposing of all things that could ruin such a beautiful morning. He shook his head and concentrated harder. Had he seen Voldemort? He didn't think so...Had he seen anyone or anything that he remembered?

It had not been him. That much he remembered. The nightmare had been full of a forbidding familiarity, as if everything that was happening to him had happened before. As far as Harry could remember, he had never even seen such a place. He vaguely remembered the Cruciatus Curse as well. In the nightmare, however, it had been the first spell he had ever learned. The first spell that Harry had ever learned had been a levitation spell. It had done wonders against a troll in the girl's bathroom, but it carried nowhere near the same power as an Unforgivable Curse.

His scar pulsed again. This time, it was as if small cold fingers were poking at his forehead, and he opened his eyes. They met Ginny's beautiful brown ones. She smiled and gave a second playful poke at his scar.

"Are you awake yet?" she asked, and the simple sound of her voice made the rest of the nightmare disappear from Harry's mind. He moved quickly up to grab her and pull her playfully down into the grass, filling her red hair with dew. She gave a surprised squeak, and both of them tumbled over into Ron and Hermione.

Hermione gave a slightly scornful glance toward whatever had so abruptly awoken her. Ron rolled onto his side and mumbled something that sounded to Harry like, "'m already up…" and was promptly asleep again. Hermione pushed him with absolutely no effect.

The delightful scent of bacon and sausages wafted down to them from the Burrow, rousing those who were still sleeping. There was a startled yell as Neville realized that he was covered in garden gnomes. Everyone else began their slow trek to the open back doors of the Weasley house, Percy and George walking as far away from each other as possible, and both with half-asleep, embarrassed expressions. Ron was left behind to become the next playground for the gnomes.

From inside came the laughter of more who had stayed after last night's celebration. A faint cry from one of the second story windows indicated that Teddy, Lupin and Tonk's son, and Harry's godson, was awake as well, and equally ready for breakfast. One last dull throb of pain from his scar caused a flicker of worry in his mind. He looked around him. Everyone was together, and the Burrow was wide open with nothing to worry about. The survivors of Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix were gathered happily in the kitchen, and he was following a beautiful girl inside to enjoy their company. There was no possibility that Voldemort could be alive on a day like today, no matter how much his scar protested. Harry put the nightmare out of his mind.

Next: Remembering the Fallen


	2. Chapter 2: Remembering the Fallen

**Chapter Two: Remembering the Fallen **

Forty five minutes later, Harry was laughing with the last seven stragglers at the Weasley kitchen table. He was uncomfortably full, having just been force fed all together too many sausages by Mrs. Weasley, who seemed convinced that he, Ron, and Hermione were starving themselves at 12 Grimmauld Place, where they had been living now since the beginning of the year.

He glanced around at the smiling faces: Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and George were gathered at the end of the table, laughing at Bill, who had enchanted the remaining bacon, and was halfway through a noteworthy dancing rendition of Rita Skeeter's new book, _Living With Death Eaters: My Decade of Insanity_, starring the last sausage as Rita Skeeter, herself. At the other end of the table, Mr. Weasley and Hagrid were engaged in quiet conversation, both occasionally applauding an impressive move by Rita the Sausage.

Mrs. Weasley and Fleur had retired to the sitting room to laugh over baby pictures of the Weasley clan. Fleur had become suddenly interested in baby pictures since she had discovered that she was soon to increase the size of the family album. Andromeda had left with Teddy first, and then Neville and Luna had returned to Hogwart's via flu powder after a quick breakfast. Percy had escaped even a quick breakfast by insisting that it was his obligation as the personal assistant to the new minister of magic to put the needs of the ministry first.

"Better run, Perce!" George had chided as Percy had slipped into the fireplace. "Kingsley's might not be able to govern the wizarding world without his morning tea!"

"Tell Kingsley that we missed him at the celebation!" Mrs. Weasley had called, just before Percy had disappeared into a green flame.

Harry looked around him once again and couldn't help but mourn the empty spaces. He remembered back to the last time that they were all gathered together around the Weasley table. It had been his seventeenth birthday, and there had been so many people that they had decided to celebrate outside. Remus and Tonks had been happy newlyweds, and Fred and George together had been reaking their usual havoc at every turn. Looking aroung the table now, Harry realized how young everyone was. These were the people that he had started school with—the children who had learned to fight the Dark Lord by his side, and had suddenly become the adults before his eyes. Nearly all of the figures who had taught them to fight and who had earned their unconditional admiration--Dumbledore, Sirius, Moody, Lupin, Tonks…even Snape—all were now absent from the table and, as with his parents before him, the next generation had been left to carry on the legacy.

These grave thoughts must have reflected in his expression, because Arthur grabbed his shoulder, and brought him back to reality.

"Harry!" he said cheerfully. "Have some more bacon. I'm sure that Bill can spare a back-up dancer for a good cause."

"Thanks, Mr. Weasley," replied Harry politely, "but if I have any more for breakfast, I'm afraid my stomach will have to apparate back to Sirius's house separately."

Harry never referred to 12 Grimmauld Place as his home, though Sirius's will had confirmed that, in every legal sense, the house was his. He never used the term "home" to refer the morbidly mysterious house that had once been the headquarters for the Order of the Pheonix. To him, it would always belong to the Black family, and only truly earned by the loyalty and bravery of the last two heirs—Regulus, who had seen the error of his ways and had given his life to correct them, and Sirius. Oh, but it still hurt after so many years to think about Sirius.

"You're not going today, are you?"

Ginny had momentarily redirected her attention to Harry, and was in the process of employing her most effective weapon against him—her eyes. She gazed at him, innocent and imploring and said in a clever, charming tone, "You promised that you were going to stay and help me with my Defense Against the Dark Arts N.E.W.T."

Just looking at her, Harry felt a weak smile creeping over his face. She knew exactly what she was doing, but he couldn't let her win this time. He, Ron, and Hermione really did have to go today. They had things to discuss that only seemed appropriate to speak of in the security of the house at Grimmauld Place. Harry wanted to tell Ron and Hermione about his nightmare and the after-effects without having to dodge Mrs. Weasley every few minutes. There was also the subject of their N.E.W.T.s, which Hermione had been drilling them over since they had both agreed to take them this year. Hermione had taken them only one month after the battle. Harry, who had spent his seventh school year wandering around the whole of England looking for Horcruxes, had never imagined that he would have lived long enough to take his N.E.W.T.s, let alone that he would be taking them alongside Ginny. It was already proving to be a somewhat unmanageable distraction.

Harry noticed Mr. Weasley smirking beside him. After enduring nearly seventeen years of the same cunning treatment from his only daughter, Harry imagined that he was experiencing some relief that that particular torch had been passed. Harry felt his will power faltering. What would be the harm in staying one more day in very pleasant company? He did the only thing that he knew might work.

"Ron!" he said a little too loudly, pulling Ron from a spectacular finale in which Rita the sausage was preparing to perform a perfect pirouette directly into Bill's mouth. "Tell your sister why we have to go today!"

"Of course we have to leave today!" responded Hermione quickly. "You both still have loads of work to do for Potions and History of Magic. Ron, you haven't even started on your Draught of Distraction, and you both still need to finish your parchment on the Ghost Decree of 1642! I promised professors Binns and Slughorn that you would be able to turn it all in before the end of next week!"

Ron groaned. He and Harry had only escaped repeating their seventh year with the majority of their classmates y agreeing to enter into the auror training program--a condition that they did not hesitate to accept--and adhering to a strict study schedule that would catch them up on missing materials and require them to take their N.E.W.T.s at the end of the year with everyone else. This condition was not accepted as lightly, as Headmaster MacGonagal had appointed Hermione their official "tutor".

Ginny gave Harry a look of mock defeat that was somehow not convincing in the least. Her shoulders sagged slightly, but the sparkle did not leave her eyes as she smiled coyly back at Hermione. "Well, if it's coming from his tutor, I suppose you win…" She rounded on Harry again with a smirk that nearly melted him. "For now…"

The play ended. Hagrid's voice rang through the final applause and the cries for an encore.

"Great ceremony last night, wasn't it, 'arry?" he asked. "Poor ole Grawpy 'ad a bit too much t' drink. He was asleep afore the fireworks even started."

Harry imagined a sixteen foot drunken giant stumbling around the Hogwart's grounds and grinned. The night before had been one of tragedy and celebration. It had marked one full year since Voldemort's downfall, and the fight that would live forever in infamy as the Battle for Hogwart's. For one day at Hogwart's, all classes had been cancelled, and for one night, students were allowed to forget about their upcoming exams. The night had been reserved as a tribute to those who could not celebrate Lord Voldemort's demise—the 54 who had died right there in the Great Hall as well as the countless others who had met their final fate at the hands of The Dark Lord during his nearly two decade reign of terror.

All those who had fought side by side in the battle had been invited back to Hogwart's to celebrate the victory and the changes that it had brought about. Many had returned. It had been a rather exhausting night for Harry. Most of those who had returned had wanted to thank him personally, or had wanted to ask him about his role. Some had brought their families, who were dying for the chance to see the "Great Harry Potter" in person. There had been a wonderful feast, and an impressive fireworks display featuring Weasley's Wild Firewhizzbangs by none other than George Weasley himself in honor of his brother.

Fred's real memorial had come after the feast, however. Those that were allowed were invited back to the Burrow where Fleur and Mrs. Weasley had spent the entire week making enough dessert to feed an army…and that is exactly what they got--Dumbledore's Army to be specific. All those who had shown up at the Burrow had been part of the original Dumbledore's Army, and all come bearing brilliant memories of Fred, Professor Dumbledore, Cedric Diggory, Colin Creevy, Katie Bell, Lupin during his year as a professor, and all those who had fought and died so young only one year earlier.

Harry had spoken to Headmistress MacGonagal, and he had persuaded her to allow him the use of Dumbledore's Pensieve, which was still kept in the headmaster's office, even thought the job of headmaster had changed hands several times since Dumbledore had last occupied the office. They had all taken turns placing their memories into the Pensieve, and Fleur had used an Augmentus Charm to project the images into the sky. They had fallen asleep laughing along to the pleasant memories of some very impressive Quiddich moves, horrifyingly witty pranks, awkward first moments, and stoic acts of heroism. Harry hadn't truly understood how great a loss was actually suffered until he saw the fallen remembered through the eyes of those who loved them most.

He especially enjoyed Bill and Ginny's memories of their brother. Only George had been closer to him, and he had refrained from sharing anything. Harry suspected that the memories he had shared with his brother were still so deeply a part of him that he could not share them with others who could never understand. Harry felt the same about his memories of Sirius. He had glanced over at George several times during the night, and had imagined once that he had seen tears reflecting off his cheeks, though Percy had moved quickly to block his brother from view. The last memory he had of the night, was falling asleep hand in hand with Ginny, and a brief glance at an army of red heads battling on brooms overhead.

Hagrid and Mr. Weasley were still staring at him, waiting for an answer.

"I think that it was brilliant," he responded with a smile that he hoped seemed authentic. "But I'm sure that Fred and Sirius would have liked what happened afterwards more.

A look of melancholy reflection appeared on Mr. Weasley's face, and he gave a stifled snort that could almost have been a laugh. "Fred and George together! Imagined the chaos they would have caused! His voice took on a sarcastic tone. "Probably would have made a fortune selling some candy that turned teachers into toadstools. We'd be getting Howlers for a week."

The sarcasm hadn't reached his eyes, and Harry knew that Mr. Weasley loved to speculate about what Fred would be up to if he had not died such an untimely death. He had been so very proud of the success of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, and one of his greatest regrets had been that he hadn't had the time to let Fred know this before the final battle. Mr. Weasley's gaze shifted to his surviving twin, who was now fighting with his older brother over the last piece of bacon. Bill had George's head in a vice grip, and was tickling his Goblin ear as George laughed hysterically and threw random unaimed punches at anything within hitting distance.

"George," Mr. Weasley called across the table. "Have I ever told you how proud I am of you?"

"Only once or twice an hour this entire year," George answered, He grinned and tapped his Goblin ear, which was bent at a rather odd angle. "Don't worry, though. I can only hear you half the time." Harry and Ginny snickered as George continued. "You reckon you'll still be proud of me tonight when the Howler's start rolling in from all the Toadstool Truffles that I sold yesterday?"

Bill made a second attempt at the bacon. George cut him off with a swift punch to the arm, and Bill's scathing retort was cut off by Fleur's musical laughter as she and Mrs. Weasley entered the kitchen. A familiar sigh echoed as Mrs. Weasley surveyed the damage.

"Alright," she said. "Who's going to help clean up this mess?"

Harry and Ron agreed suddenly that now was the perfect time to start on the homework that awaited them at Sirius's house.

Next: Catching Up


	3. Chapter 3: Catching Up

**Chapter Three: Catching Up**

They apparated to the front stoop of 12 Grimmauld place as they had always done, and entered into a hallway that was nearly unrecognizable. The scent of new paint greeted them as they stared, open mouthed at the bright, strangely cheerful entryway. Moments later, a small dilapidated house elf appeared, wearing what looked like a slightly worn pillowcase and splattered from head to toe with light blue paint.

"Good morning, young masters!" he creaked in an unnaturally low voice. "Pardon Kreacher's slowness sirs and miss, but Kreacher is finishing with miss's quarters now."

"Kreacher!" exclaimed Hermione. "Did you do all this in one night?"

"Of course, miss," Kreacher replied with a note of pride. "Kreacher is wanting to finish all rooms, but he is encountering…er…other matters requiring Kreacher's attention." His enormous eyes darted nervously to the closed curtain at the end of the hall that still housed the portrait of Sirius's very foul mother.

It had taken Hermione a month to convince Harry to allow her to make any changes to the previous decoration. Everything had reminded him of Sirius. She had finally succeeded by reminding him that Sirius had been miserable stuck in such a dark and dingy place. She had found even greater problems in convincing Kreacher, who had argued so vehemently against it for the first few weeks that he had even resorted to using the term Mudblood again.

After two months of preparing her own meals and washing her own clothes, during which Kreacher was commonly seen once again in deep conversation with the portrait of the former owner of the house, Hermione had finally succeeded. It was as if the elf had always desired a change. Once his mind had been changed, Kreacher had followed her around the house, dutifully recording all of her ideas, and even offering some of his own suggestions. Now, all three of them stood in awe of the complete transformation of the Black entryway.

"I can't wait to see the kitchen," said Ron as he made his way up the hallway.

"Ron, you have to get started on your potion first!" said Hermione, following him down the hall, and Harry recognized the beginning of a very busy morning. Hermione would soon be absorbed in talk of study schedules and making up for lost time. Once she was finished with Ron, she was sure to remember the parchment that Harry also owed to Professor Binns. Harry decided that now was the best time to mention his nightmare.

"Can we go into the parlor first?" he interrupted, hoping that the parlor had undergone the same miraculous change as the entryway. He had the feeling that it would be a much easier tale to tell in a bright and cheery place.

Neither of them questioned him, though both wore looks of worried curiosity as they followed him into the parlor, which was a thankfully off-white color. They sat down on the sofa expectantly. There was a moment's pause as Harry tried to determine how best to tell them without causing too much worry.

"My scar hurt again this morning," he said simply.

Hermione's eyebrows raised slightly, in alarm. She and Ron looked at each other, but said nothing. Harry told them what he remembered of the nightmare, finishing with his unpleasant awakening. They listened with darkening expressions. They had spent three years worrying whenever Harry's scar had hurt. It had been so directly associated with Voldemort for so long that it was only natural to become alarmed, even though they all had been witnesses to Voldemort's final moments.

A pensive silence fell over them when Harry had finished. Hermione was the first to speak.

"But you didn't see Voldemort," she reassured him. "Voldemort's dead. We all know that. It was someone else you were seeing."

"Could it have been a Death Eater?" asked Ron.

"I suppose…" began Harry, but was interrupted as Hermione continued, her brow furrowed in thought.

"It could have been simply because it's been exactly one year since everything happened." She was speaking more to herself than to the other two people in the parlor. "I mean…we don't know exactly how curse scars react, do we?"

"Yeah! George says his scar hurts all the time!" Ron said hopefully.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Ron, I hardly think you can compare George's ear to the only Killing Curse scar ever known."

Ron's mouth opened in response and Harry, recognizing the beginning of a typical round of bickering, seized the opportunity to bring the subject around to what had been worrying him.

"What if it was one of his more powerful Death Eaters?"

"If it was, I want to know which one so we can bring him in quick," said Ron. "Whoever learns the Cruciatus Curse as their first spell has got to be really powerful!"

"And a very dark, twisted wizard." Harry added, thinking more of those who had been able to capture and bind a wizard that dangerous.

"No one could learn that as their first spell," said Hermione. "Not even a Death Eater. Even they have the trace on them as kids. If they performed Cruciatus anywhere…"

"Mom caught Fred trying to do it to a bee that stung him once," interrupted Ron. "Didn't know it was an Unforgivable Curse back then. Just learned it from friend."

"And could he do it?" Hermione asked.

"Nah," Ron admitted, shrugging his shoulders. "He still got it from mum though. He said his backside was red for a week!"

"Ron said it, Harry. A child could never do the Cruciatus curse. Remember in the ministry after Sirius…" Hermione paused. The expression on Harry's face told her that she had entered dangerous territory. His neck visibly stiffened. "You tried to perform it on Bellatrix and it didn't work."

Harry's eyes blazed momentarily. "I wouldn't have any problems now if she were back by that veil," he hissed.

"Yes, but you're stronger now," said Hermione quickly. "My point is, you have to really want it. It has to come from a really powerful wizard. No one could learn it as their first spell. Not even Voldemort could have done. It had to have been only a nightmare, Harry."

"Hermione's got a point, mate," said Ron, putting his arm around her. Harry felt himself growing more at ease. These were the words that he had been hoping to hear. He was unbelievably tired of living crisis after crisis. Now he just wanted to believe that everything was fine, and hearing it from his two best mates made it that much more real.

"I just don't understand why my scar had to hurt afterward," he said. "It hasn't hurt in a year, and then just now, exactly a year after I killed him…"

"There were decades worth of memories dragged up at that ceremony," interrupted Ron. "Everyone was talking about it. Even I thought I saw Fred sitting by George last night." He paused and looked away for a moment. "It was great, but it was hard to remember everything that happened." Hermione shivered, and he squeezed her tighter. "Especially when most of it happened to you."

The hair on the back of Harry's neck bristled. "Or because of you…" he finished.

"Don't say that anymore, Harry," snapped Hermione. "You know that's not true. You sacrificed yourself for all of us." Harry found himself suddenly unable to meet her eyes. "You walked in knowing you were going to die, and you just stood there! Normal people don't do that every day. Maybe your scar is going to hurt every 21st of May just because of that…you never know."

Harry looked uncertainly toward Ron, who was nodding along with Hermione. "So neither of you think it could be…"

"Voldemort's dead Harry," said Ron firmly, and his ability to say the name without even the slightest grimace seemed to add to the finality of this statement.

"I know," said Harry, "But there are a lot of bad wizards that are still out there."

No one currently residing in the Black house needed to be reminded of this fact. Ron and Hermione had been by Harry's side enough in the past five years to learn very well just how much he knew of the power of dark wizards. The past six months had only confirmed what he had been trying to tell the ministry since his first brush with them in his third year.

For the past six months, Harry had been directly involved in the tracking and capture of all those Death Eaters who would not turn themselves in. He had remembered every day what Dumbledore had once told him—that some of Voldemort's Death Eaters were nearly as dangerous and powerful as Voldemort himself. Dumbledore's words had been proven true in every confrontation. Harry had thought that the worst of Voldemort's servants had been eliminated along with him in the final battle. Six months of disappointing dead ends, grueling nights without sleep, and horrifyingly bloody battles had shown him that he had been mistaken. Some grudgingly resigned themselves to capture after a chase, strangely terrified of a face to face confrontation with the only person who had twice survived a direct killing curse and defeated the most powerful dark wizard of this age before even completing his schooling.

Most, however, resisted with every force that they had. They used every Unforgivable Curse and dark vicious invention in an attempt to take as many aurors with them as possible. Harry had seen things during those battles that still kept him up some nights. Two aurors had been lost already, and three more very seriously injured. Harry had begun to understand exactly why Mad Eye had looked the way he did after a lifetime of pursuing dark wizards. In the end, he and Ron, together with the entire department of aurors, had sought and found nearly thirty more dark wizards.

"You're also forgetting the reason your scar hurt in the first place." Hermione's voice brought him out of his reverie. "You and Voldemort were connected. You were his final horcrux. You've got no connecion like that with any Death Eaters. There's no way you would be able to see into their minds."

"It was just a weird dream, Harry," Ron said. "Don't worry about it."

Satisfied that his friends did not appear the slightest bit concerned, Harry excused himself to his room with the excuse that he needed the solitude to finish his essay. What he really needed to do was think. The ceremony at Hogwarts had brought back memories that Harry had gone to great lengths to bury. He needed some time to contemplate them and, if necessary, bury them again.

Harry had disappeared for three months after the final battle. He had stayed long enough to watch as Fred, Lupin, Tonks, Colin, Susan Bones, Justin Finch Fletchly, Katie Bell, and too many others were lowered silently into the ground. He had stayed that first sad night with the Weasleys, watching as, just like him, they bumbled about confused, shocked, and unable find any direction…occasionally finding a stray Skiving Snackbox and breaking off into tears.

Harry had been unable to sleep for days after everything that had happened. He had not been alone. He would watch each night as, one by one each red head would disappear to their bedrooms, trying to sleep…pretending to sleep, but never really sleeping. Harry would hear them crying in the night—Ron sniffling quietly in the bed next to him, knowing that Harry was awake, but too overwhelmed with grief to care.

Harry would slip out those night and walk. There was no destination…no thought in his head…there was only the slow constant pace that kept his thoughts from drifting back. Several times, when slipping out for one of his midnight walks, he heard muffled sobs through Ginny's door. He would have given anything to be able to comfort her. Just a shoulder to cry on…that's all she needed…but he found himself unable to do so. He couldn't be there for her. He couldn't say anything that she needed to hear. The fact was floating there somewhere in between them, making all of his intentions hollow…Ginny was missing a brother…Mrs. Weasley's worse fear had come true…Teddy was an orphan…so many people were crying in the night at this very moment because of him. It had been Harry's blood that had given Voldemort the power to return.

It was the weight of these thoughts more than anything else that had pushed him away one night about two weeks after the Battle for Hogwarts. He had wandered particularly far on one of his midnight walks when he had simply decided not to turn around. He had walked without stopping for the rest of the night, and a good part of the next day. Ron had come looking for him then. He had brought him his Firebolt and a bit of food that Mrs. Weasley had prepared for him, but he did not protest when Harry told him that he wasn't coming back. Instead, his face had melted into a sad understanding, almost as if he had been thinking of doing the same thing.

Harry had apparated first to Godric's Hollow to see the graves of his parents, and then to the mysterious seaside cave where he had last seen Dumbledore strong and commanding. He paid a visit to the cave on the edge of Hogsmeade, where Sirius had once spent half a year as a dog in order to keep an eye on Harry, and to the lighthouse in the middle of the sea where Hagrid had first revealed to him his true origins.

On it went for three months. Harry could not remember all of the places that he had gone, nor why he had thought them important enough to visit. He did not stop moving. He did not stop thinking. He did not wander with a purpose. He roamed instead with a line in one of his favorite muggle books repeating over and over in his head…

_Not all those who wonder are lost…_

His thoughts had been filled with the faces of the dead. Many times he had wished for the picture that Moody had given him of the old Order of the Pheonix. He had wanted to compare those faces with the ones that haunted his mind. It was to those faces that his mind turned now as he entered the room that had once belonged to his godfather. He was happy to see that Kreacher had not yet reached it with his new paint.

The album with the photo in it was in his closet next to Hedwig's empty cage. He thought he had bought himself at least fifteen minutes to be able to look in relatively uninterrupted peace. He turned to the closet door hastily to get the album...

And found a wand aimed straight at his eye.

Next: The Black Back Door


	4. Chapter 4: The Black Back Door

Harry went instinctively for his wand, but a vaguely familiar voice rang out before he could even get close.

"Expelliarmus!"

And his wand flew out of his pocket and across the room. He found himself suddenly frozen, shocked into a state where he was unable to do anything more than stare into the darkness of the closet, the shadows of which hid his attacker perfectly. After facing off with the most dangerous wizard of his time and winning…after hunting down the last of his Death Eaters and walking away unscathed…after watching without fear as Voldemort used the killing curse against him, not once…not twice, but three times…after DYING …and coming back…he was caught completely off guard in his own bedroom. He laughed in spite of himself. The wand pointed at him faltered.

"Shut up, boy!" the shadow hissed, and this time, Harry recognized the voice. He watched as the figure stepped out of the darkness, revealing eerily familiar heavily lidded eyes. They were wild and desperate and focused only on him. Somehow, after successfully evading an entire squadron of aurors and finding her way through the countless protection charms and counter curses that now protected the Black House, Narcissa Malfoy had found her way home.

Crucio!" she hissed without blinking.

The spell hit him in the forehead just centimeters from his lightning scar. Pain like red hot embers shot instantly down his spine, taking root and shooting flaming daggers down through his extremities. He writhed and curled in upon himself. The pain was too great to think or even to let out the yell that he knew would send Ron and Hermione rushing to help him.

"Where is he?" Harry heard through the mad rush of the spell in his ears. "I know you have him!" The voice was right by his ear, cooing to him softly from inches away as he flailed helplessly. "I know your people took him! Blood traitors, all of you! After he was cleared of any charges!"

Harry tried to turn…tried to knock the wand from Narcissa's hand, but the pain was too intense. His fingernails had drawn deep half moon shapes into his palms, and he realized that he was biting his lower lip, which was torn nearly to shreds. It took every effort he had to open his mouth and gather what little breath his burning lungs would allow.

"Stop!" he managed. It was intended to come out with enough force to sound defiant, and perhaps to reach the lower floors. Instead, all that Harry managed was a pathetic squeak that sounded almost as if he were begging. He didn't care how it sounded. He wanted the pain to end. Then the voice came again.

"Petrificus totalus!"

The pain disappeared instantly...gloriously...leaving his entire body motionless and reeling from the aftereffects of the Cruciatus curse. He wasted no time in trying to call out again, but found that his vocal chords, like the rest of his body, were completely petrified.

From his place on the floor, he could not see Narcissa's face, but he heard quick, sharp footsteps as she came nearer and felt the cold tip of her wand poke hard into his neck. For a short moment, she did nothing, almost as if she were contemplating something, and then the wand disappeared. Harry could do no more than lie there, feeling the stiffening heat from the pain before as it left his aching limbs. Now that it had diminished, a surreal sense of confusion was beginning to replace it. They had been searching for Narcissa since the night of the battle, but she had eluded even the keenest aurors. Why was she here now? How had she gotten past the ministry's most powerful spells to enter his room, and just who had disappeared that had caused her to come out of hiding?

"Muffliato!" Narcissa called toward the door, and Harry's hopes of third party rescue were destroyed. The wand was at his neck again, and she used it to draw a sharp line across the base of Harry's throat while whispering something that he could not understand. He felt a liquid warmth spread rapidly over his face, and he realised that he could blink again. Cautiously, he tried to move his mouth and found that he could, but further examination of his hands and legs revealed that they remained as still as stone. But he had his voice.

"Accio wand!" he called, almost as a last resort, not knowing exactly what he hoped to accomplish. He had seen Dumbledore and other powerful wizards use magic without wands before, and had even done it himself on occasion, but never on purpose. His wand did not move from it's place in the corner of the room. His attempts were as futile as calling for Ron or Hermione would have been. Narcissa had planned her attack well. Her wicked laughter came from his left and he turned his head to fix his attacker with a defiant gaze.

"What do you want!" he yelled at her with more force in his voice than he felt in his body. Narcissa was not shaken.

"I want to know where you took my son!" she yelled back. Her hands were shaking with an anger that was only barely under control. "He was proven innocent! He was paying what you people said he owed! He has no idea where she is! We wanted nothing to do with her. I've always kept them apart!"

It was as if Harry's mind had also been petrified. Pieces were beginning to fall into place. Draco was missing, but...

"Who are you talking about?" he asked, genuinely puzzled. Narcissa slapped him, stopping any further questions in his mouth, and sending blood from his mangled lip flying across the room.

"Don't play dumb with me!" she snapped. "I know your aurors have him held without charge. Your new ministry is just as corrupt as the last one!"

Harry did not know what to say. The pain in his lip was growing by the minute, for the moment overpowered by his hatred for the woman who stood before him--who had managed to enter what he had grown to believe was impenetrable. His ears swam with the sounds of Hermione screaming as Narcissa and her sister Bellatrix tortured her in their own home not two years ago. His memories were tainted by the images of her and her husband at Voldemort's feet, torturing anyone at the will of their Dark Lord. He would have liked nothing more than to tell her that they HAD arrested Draco, but he did not have the slightest idea what she was talking about. As far as he knew, Draco was at Malfoy Manor, sitting alone on a mountain of galleons. All of this must have registered on his face because the anger threatening to ignite inside of Narcissa blazed anew and she stabbed him hard with her wand.

"Carignitus!" she screamed, and this time, Harry screamed with her. His head was suddenly on fire! Deep blue flames engulfed the part of his body that was not petrified, and Harry suddenly understood what it must have been like to be burned at the stake. His eyes bulged and he felt his skin growing taut as it boiled off of his face.

Then it was gone once again, and his face was left with no more injury than his torn lip. Narcissa was screaming at him once again.

"He was helping at St. Mungo's when he disappeared! Your people are the only ones who could take him from there!"

Harry's mind was reeling. His people? He didn't know who his people were. He searched frantically for anything that he could say to buy him time…anything at all that would keep her from using that last spell again. His mind was only able to focus on one question.

"How did you get into Sirius's house?" he asked, not really believing that it would serve as much distraction, but unable to think of anything else. To his surprise, the fire that had crept into Narcissa's eyes subsided and was replaced with a look of surprised arrogance as she approached Harry once again.

"This was my home more than it ever was Sirius's!" she retorted with a note of childish greed. "You're in my room, not Sirius's! It was mine before it was his, and it passed to me again when he betrayed his own family. I have ways of entering my own room!"

"How?" Harry asked. He was struggling to find any information that he might have missed, but once again, nothing more than questions came to him. Narcissa was again at his ear, whispering.

"Enough questions, boy," she hissed malevolently, pointing her wand at him once again. Harry braced himself for more pain. "I can stay here all day." She grinned in anticipation. "I have many more curses. You can't possibly believe that the Cruciatus curse is the worst pain that you can experience." And now Harry did not believe this. Narcissa continued. "I am very practiced in the art of torture. I'm sure you know that."

Anger surged in him. "I don't know anything about Draco!" Harry replied defiantly. "I don't care where he..."

"Foolish child!" came the inturruption, "I know there have been reports! Even a minister as dim-witted as this one would see that she's not dead! I know your aurors took him because they think he's helping her. He would never help her. Especially not now!"

A stream of ice ran down Harry's spine as he tries to think of a female Death Eater who was supposed to be dead. Only one possibility came to his mind, and he spoke her name aloud before he knew what he was doing.

"Bellatrix…" he said, and he saw the confirmation etched into her sister's face. "Bellatrix is dead!" he shouted, more as a form of assurance than as a retort, but for some reason, he was not reassured. Everything that he had experienced was there in his memory to tell him that Narcissa was mad, but the cold calculation in her expression did not carry the look of the insane.

As he watched, that expression was contorting into a look of fear as it dawned on her that Harry truly did not know anything. "The ministry doesn't know," she said, and Harry recognized a note of panic in her voice. "Then why would they have taken Draco?"

"They didn't," Harry said in a plainly bewildered tone. Narcissa was no longer facing him. She was pacing the room, suddenly oblivious to her prisoner.

"Then she took him." Her voice had become a contemplative whisper. She turned her eyes back to Harry determinately, as if she had come to a very difficult decision and continued. "Draco knows nothing! He doesn't have what she's looking for. The ministry can help him!"

Bellatris is dead!" Harry yelled, and this time he managed to convince himself. He had seen the look of shock that had distorted her evil face as Mrs. Weasley's curse finally hit home. Narcissa's mouth curled into a snarl and her wand moved to curse him again. He closed his eyes in horrid anticipation.

And then a thundering crash to his left caused him to open his eyes again and he found himself engulfed in a cloud of dust. A series of red and purple flashes were flying near him from somewhere just beyond his line of sight. He heard Narcissa scream in frustration, and then Hermione's voice rang out from somewhere in the dust.

"Stupify!"

The scream was cut off abruptly, replaced by a dull thud as Narcissa hit the ground. Harry's heart lurched wth the desire to participate, and he yelled out.

"Hermione! I can't move!"

Then Hermione was above him, and he could move again. The dust was already beginning to clear as he ran past an enormous hole in the bedroom wall toward the prone body of Narcissa. Ron was conjuring ropes to tie her with. He was white with shock as he stared back at Harry.

"Blimey, Harry," he said. "She could have killed you! Look at your face!"

Harry brushed off this comment and turned to retrieve his wand. Now that Ron mentioned it though, the pain from his mouth was growing more noticeable by the minute. He pointed his wand at his bloodstained face and thought, "Expingo!" The pain disappeared, but his lips did not heal He found himself suddenly missing Madam Pomfrey. "How did you know I was in trouble? She knew Muffliato."

"Kreacher heard you yelling something about Bellatrix," replied Ron. "Must not work on house elves. Good thing too! How'd she get in here?"

The question was answered by Hermione, who had disappeared into the closet, wand first.

"Its a Caminus Charm," came the muffled reply from what seemed like a great distance. Her head appeared out of the darkness, and the volume of her voice increased suddenly. "It's used to make a portal from one place to another. Narcissa must have made it when she was living with her aunt. It's been open all this time." She shivered, no doubt thinking of the years that the house had served as headquarters for all resistance.

Harry stood up. "Let's see where it leads," he said determinately.

"Harry, no!" said Hermione, who seemed more concerned with the state of Harry's face now that she had secured the room She reached out to touch a swelled cheek and Harry pulled away. "I already called for help. You're not going in without them."

"Hermione! She said that Bellatrix is still alive!" Harry protested. "She could be on the other side right now! She could be getting away!"

Both Hermione and Ron's faces drained completely of color.

"Then she's mad!" said Ron. "We all saw mum kill her."

"We all saw her die. Narcissa was trying to trick you," said Hermione.

"I don't think she was mad," said Harry. He turned gravely toward Hermione. "And I don't think it was a trick. I don't want to make that mistake of thinking someone else is dead that turns out not to be. We have to see where that portal leads."

"I already know where it leads," whispered Hermione growing paler.

"Where?" asked Ron and Harry together.

"Malfoy Manor," said Hermione.

Next: Voldemort's Last Disciple


	5. Chapter 5: Voldemort's Last Disciple

"So all in all a pretty productive morning," said George as he helped Ron pull clean sheets over his and Harry's beds. It was a balmy late afternoon, and the three of them were once again at the Burrow preparing for a stay of unknown length.

"Yeah," Ron agreed sullenly. "A little morning torture, bringing down the last big Death Eater, and another night with all of you. I'd say it's been pretty much like…"

"Like being in Hogwart's with Harry again," Ginny interrupted from the doorway. She sat down next to Harry with a caring smile and handed him what looked like a blue towel. "Put this on your face. Mum says it helps after flame hexes." She bent over and kissed his cheek, which had been hot and swollen since Narcissa's rampage that morning.

"Thanks," he said. He pressed the towel to his face and felt it ice over in his hands. It felt wonderful after passing the entire day with the burning memory of his face on fire. He leaned to give Ginny a hug. "At least I have the best nurse possible."

A few carefully whispered spells and a rather large amount of Dittany from Mrs. Weasley's plentiful stock had cleared up most of Harry's injuries quite quickly, but Molly had not allowed him out of her sight all day. She had apparated to the front steps of the Black house the second that Ron's silver terrier had appeared in the kitchen to warn her of the day's destructive beginnings. She had arrived second only to Romulus Redberg, the new head of the auror division. She was just in time to find Harry swollen and shaking in the rubble of his bedroom, trying in vain to stem the flow of blood that was pouring from his mouth, relaying everything to a shocked Redberg, and angrily insisting on leading a team into Malfoy Manor to look for Bellatrix and Draco. One stern look and a few well chosen words uttered between gritted teeth had been enough to eliminate any illusions of dangerous expeditions, and he had reluctantly allowed himself to be treated without much protest.

The rest of the day had been a buzz of auror activity. It seemed that the entire ministry had been invited into the Black house to root through everything. Harry had repeated the same story no less than twenty times to various heads of departments. Malfoy Manor had been thoroughly searched using every detection spell imaginable. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, along with every auror and magical detection agent that could be spared, had spent the entire day rooting through even the smallest cracks with any hint of magic near them in the Malfoy home. It proved to be utterly in vain, however. There remained no sign of either Draco or the possibility of a revived Bellatrix Lestrange.

Narcissa had been taken in chains to Azkaban where she was to remain until her trial, which was scheduled to begin in exactly one week. During that time, her Caminus Charm was to be reversed, and the ministry had plans to paint the Black house with a fresh barrage of protection spells, leaving Harry, Ron, and Hermione once again at the mercy of Mrs. Weasley until all was back to normal again.

* * *

The front page of the Daily Prophet the next morning was a montage of struggling photos of Narcissa Malfoy in chains, her white blond hair splayed messily behind her as she raved silently. It brought back memories of the photos of her sister that had appeared in the paper after a massive breakout during Harry's fifth year at Hogwart's. Narcissa was being called "Voldemort's last disciple", and the headlines rang of the final triumph of "The Chosen One". Harry had thrown the paper down without reading the article, amazed at the Daily Prophet's ability to oversensationalize everything that had to do with him. There had already been four owls requesting exclusive interviews, and Hermione had captured a shiny blue-green beetle in the breakfast table centerpiece that had turned out to be a shameless Rita Skeeter in search of any information that would put her in line for her next book. Harry had seen Hermione in the garden later with a glass jar, obviously contemplating whether or not to set Skeeter free. She had returned with an empty glass jar a great while later. Clearly, the decision had not been an easy one.

Even if he had been willing to grant an interview in the week before the trial, he would have found himself unable to do so. Mrs. Weasley occupied the majority of his spare time with incessant fussing to see if the flaming hex—apparently a Death Eater original—had left any long-lasting effects. Hermione, who still was not convinced that Narcissa's warning was anything more than random threats, had taken up her constant badgering of both him and Ron with renewed vigor. Their nights were filled with study schedules and homework assignments, all to prepare them for the ever-closer NEWT's. Ginny only needed to be somewhere near to serve as a welcome distraction for Harry who, faced with the horrifying new probablility of Bellatrix still being alive, had spent all his days at the ministry trying to find even the smallest hint of proof or clue as to where she and Draco might have taken refuge. What Narcissa had said about Draco had proved to be true. Draco had disappeared from St. Mungo's where he volunteered at weekends, but beyond that, any trail ran cold. Harry had requested formal interrogations several times with Narcissa, hoping that having been her final captor would have allowed him special preference, but his requests had been repeatedly denied with the sincerest apologies and the excuse that Narcissa had become uncontrollable, even requiring the use of Sayers. Harry, who had no idea what Sayers were, had accepted the rejection with great disappointment and continued to offer his help in the search for Draco, as no one truly believed that a search for a long dead Death Eater was needed.

Hermione, for her part, had been through the entire Hogwarts and Hogsmeade libraries looking for anything in the Black family history that would lead them to an explanation or a hiding place. None of them, not even Harry, knew whether or not to believe Narcissa. There had been hundreds of witnesses to Bellatrix's death, and very few explanations to her possible undeath. Harry could think of only one reason that Mrs. Weasley's curse had been uneffective…that Bellatrix herself had also made a Horcrux…and that possibility was too horrible to entertain for long periods of time.

The day before the trial, a regal golden brown owl appeared at the breakfast table with a golden envelope addressed to Harry. It was a summons from the Wizengammot requiring him to report to the ministry exactly one hour before the start of the trial at the request of the prisoner, Narcissa Malfoy, who had requested a private conversation. There was a friendly postscript in Kingsley's handwriting saying "Better late than never!" Harry read the summons aloud and then looked up to a table full of puzzled faces.

"Why would she want to talk to you now?" asked Ron.

"More important, why would the Wizangammot allow you to speak to her now?" asked Hermione. "You've been asking to see her for a week and they've rejected every request."

"Maybe she's calmed down enough for Harry to see her now," Ginny speculated.

Harry remained silent. He did not have an answer for either question, but he found that he did not care. He had spent the majority of the week trying to speak to Narcissa, and now the opportunity had presented itself in the simplest form…a request from the prisoner herself.

He spent the majority of the day discussing his mysterious interview with Ginny, Ron, and Hermione before going to bed early to give himself time alone to think. He imagined being alone in an interrogation room with Narcissa and he suddenly found that he did not have the slightest idea what he wanted to ask her. Hundreds of thoughts and worries were floating around in his mind, but he couldn't form a single solid question. If Narcissa's words were true, then he needed to gather as much information as possible. He needed to understand. If Bellatrix truly had survived Mrs. Weasley's curse, then he needed to know how...where she had gone...and most important, how she could be taken down once again. All of these thoughts formed a random sort of chaos in his head…and he fell asleep without having constructed a single feasible question.

* * *

He awoke very early in the morning and slipped out for a walk in the garden to clear the deluge from his mind. By the time the sun had reached the level of the garden fence, Harry was convinced that he had developed at least a proper amount of questions for the occasion, and he made his way back to the house.

Hermione, Ginny, and Mrs. Weasley were all in the kitchen, and a warm breakfast awaited him on the table. They ate together in silence for a few minutes, and then Ginny said, "You'll send an owl right away telling us how it went, won't you?"

Harry was startled. You mean you're not all going to the trial?" he asked.

"Oh no, dear," said Molly. "Ministry only at Death Eater trials. You know that! If everyone who wnated to came, it would be a regular circus!" She glanced over at the famous grandfather clock. The hand that represented Arthur was currently set on "In Transit," which probably meant that he was on his way to the bottom of the ministry where the trial would be held. "I suppose it's almost time."

From the expression on Ginny's face, the argument on whether or not to attend the trial had already been fought and won by Mrs. Weasley. Harry fixed her with a sympathetic look.

"I'll send an owl directly after the trial," he promised.

"Wonderful!" said Molly cheerfully. "Kingsley will be waiting for you at Apparition Point four." She flicked her wand at him casually and Harry felt a tug on the back of his head as his hair tried in vain to smooth itself down. She gave up, frowning a bit. "Arthur went in early today to get good seats. You should be able to find him easily enough."

"Don't forget to sen an owl!" called Hermione as Harry nodded at Mrs. Weasley and made his way toward the door.

Ginny accompanied him to the garden gate and gave him a kiss for luck before he turned on the spot and appeared moments later in the middle of an elaborate hallway. To his left and right were two long rows of chimneys, all glowing green as wizards of all shapes and sizes entered the ministry, shaking soot from their robes as they went on their way to uncountable ministry departments. Ahead of him and behind him,even more wizards were appearing and disappearing from the seven apparation points that had only recently been reinstalled inside ministry grounds.

Harry looked around for Kingsley and found him not far away in deep conversation with a guard in dark purple robes. He greeted him warmly and accompanied him to the lift, where Kingsley gave Harry a much needed explanation.

I'm sorry this took so long, Potter," he said, making sure no other stragglers were listening in. "Narcissa went absolutely mad when she realized that she was in Azkaban. Wouldn't stop screaming about her son." His voice dropped to a whisper as the lift arrived and they both stepped in. "We tried to assure her that we had ministry agents searching for him, but she was unconsolable. She attacked her own husband when we let him visit her."

"Do they know anything more about Draco?" Harry asked as the lift glided smoothly to a stop in the ministry basements.

"Nothing new," Kingsley replied. "The Healers saw him leave St. Mungo's at his normal time. The trial goes cold then. He lives in that mansion all alone now. Not even a servant to serve as a witness."

They exited into the sickly familiar hallway and turned right toward the large courtroom that had served the same dark purpose now for nearly three decades. Harry couldn't help a glance back at the black door at the opposite end of the corridor that marked the entrance to the Department of Mysteries.

He paused at the courtroom doors, expecting Kingsley to do the same. Instead, he continued on to what seemed like a window. The sun shone brightly in on them, though Harry knew that they were at least seven floors underground. Kingsley tapped the window twice with his wand and the sun disappeared, revealing a small passageway guarded by two large wizards. They looked from Kingsley to Harry with grim, businesslike faces and Harry noticed that they were not carrying wands. The tallest of the two stepped forward and shook Harry's hand almost bashfully.

"Clarin Sidehook at your service Mr. Potter," he said with a shyness that didn't show in his expression. "It is an honor to meet you. My wife will never believe me when I tell her."

Harry grinned nervously.

"They are the Sayers that had to be called in to manage the prisoner." Kingsley explained. Then, seeing the look of confusion already forming on Harry's face, he added, "They've mastered magic without wands. Very rare. Very expensive."

Clarin and his partner looked down modestly, but Harry noticed the subtle smirk exchanged.

"She's in here," Sidehook said.

They continued down the passageway and into a tiny room with a chair identical to the one in the middle of the courtroom. Harry remembered his brief stint with ministry justice in his fifth year—how he had feared that the manacles hanging from both sides of that chair would wrap around his wrists and ankles as he sat unable to protest. Today, however, the chair was occupied by the pale, unmoving figure of Narcissa Malfoy.

"The Great Harry Potter," she said as he drew closer. Her voice was tainted with bitter sarcasm. "How does it feel to take down 'The Last Great Disciple?'"

"Are you the last?" Harry asked.

Narcissa looked around at the eager expressions on the faces of Kingsley and her two guards and smiled a tired smile that was void of all emotion. "Draco has been missing for ten days now."

"The ministry has had its best agents looking for Draco all week," said Kingsley. Narcissa did not acknowledge his words.

"Your ministry will do nothing to find the son of two Death Eaters. But you saved him in the battle...twice. He told me that."

"I've been helping them all week," said Harry. Sensing the converation headed in the wrong direction, he tried to steer it toward more dangerous matters. "They've been looking for Bellatrix too."

Narcissa said nothing, but continued to stare around at the four men with a cool gaze.

"If Bellatrix is alive, then they could be together," Harry goaded. "It would make it easier to find Draco if you…"

"If Draco is with her, it is against his will!" snapped Narcissa, and Harry began to see the rage that he had expected.

"Then it's true!" exclaimed Sidehook's partner from behind him. "Bellatrix Lestrange is still alive?"

Harry looked irately back at him. Narcissa had resumed her cold observation of the room around her. She would never give him the information that he needed with onlookers present. "Is there any way I could be left alone with her for a minute?"

Narcissa gave a crazy laugh. "Leave the mascot of their new society alone with a murderer?" she said sarcastically. "Not for all the information in England!"

Kingsley confirmed this with a tense shake of his head.

Frustrated, Harry turned toward Narcissa. "Mrs. Malfoy, why did you ask me to come here today if you don't want to tell me anything. I can't find Draco any faster than the ministry unless you have something else to tell me."

"Draco is not the same boy he was at school, Potter," she said. "He is not a murderer, and had it not been to save his father, he would never have become a Death Eater…" She looked down in what seemed like shame. "I would never have been a Death Eater if I had not married one."

Harry remembered the desperation in her voice in the Forbidden Forest as she listened for his heartbeat at the request of her master. She had saved his life in the end. He found that he believed her now. She was evil. She was arrogant beyond belief, and completely convinced of her own superiority, but it was not in her to be "Voldemort's Last Disciple". She was only a mother who had been given no other options. Still, he had trouble finding any amount of sympathy for her. She may not have chosen her path, but she had enjoyed quite a few steps down it just a little too much for Harry's taste.

"Is that all you wanted to tell me, then?" he asked impatiently. "Nothing about Bellatrix? Nothing about whether she's still alive? Nothing about where she is?"

Narcissa glared back at him, defiantly silent, and then, reluctantly, "She's alive."

The silence in the room was palpable. Harry felt something ice cold wash through him. He hadn't truly believed it until that moment.

"H-How?" he stammered.

"I don't know how," Narcissa said. "She just appeared one day at the manor. I told her I never wanted to see her again. She left."

"And took Draco with her?" Harry asked.

Her face took on a sudden animation. "Draco isn't helping her! If he's with her, it's as her captive!" She struggled against the manacles trying to stand. Sidehook moved forward smoothly.

"Mrs. Malfoy, sit down," he whispered forebodingly. She continued to strain against the manacles. Sidehook's eyes narrowed for a moment and the manacles began to glow blue. Narcissa screamed and sat down immediately, eyes closed tight.

"What did she say when she came to your house?" Harry asked her.

But Narcissa was no longer talking. When she opened her eyes again, they were unresponsive. "Get out now," she whispered.

"Mrs. Malfoy..."

"GET OUT!!" she shouted, and it was clear that the interview was over.

"I'll look for Draco," he said, his frustration barely in control as he turned toward the door. "I'll find him, but not for you. You chose to marry a Death Eater and follow a murderer, and you will spend the rest of your life in Azkaban because of it. But I think Dumbledore was right about Draco... There's still hope for him." And as much as it disgusted him to say so, Harry meant what he said.

He was halfway to the door when Narcissa's voice rang out again. "Though everyone here may think differently, Potter, I am not a Death Eater."

"That mark on your wrist says differently," Kingsley replied.

"I gave up that life the moment I defied the Dark Lord to save your life," she continued. "It's not over, Potter, and I want it to be. That's why I asked you here. I want my son to be safe, and I saw you take the Death Curse. I saw you defeat him." The awe with which Narcissa had spoken about her old master had been replaced with something closer to disgust. "You are the only one who can end it."

"Then answer my questions," Harry replied, but Narcissa was not finished.

"I visited my family vault before I visited you, Potter. I hadn't been there since before I married Lucius. I found a trunk of memories that I had almost forgotten were there."

Harry stared at her, puzzled. Was she telling him that the answers were in her vault?

"There were two things missing from inside the trunk," she said. "One of those was a possession that Bellatrix never allowed out of her sight…for a time."

She paused and looked up at Kingsley. "I arranged so that Potter…and only Potter…may enter the Black family vault." Finally turning back to Harry, she concluded with words that he would have never in his life expected to hear from Narcissa Malfoy. "Please...I'm begging you. Find my son. End this."

And she turned away.

* * *

_Note: I'm thinking of making this into two chapters...what do you think? It's just so long after I revised it!_


	6. Chapter 6: Escaping Gringott's

Harry exited into the hallway in a trance. He had expected to leave the interrogation quite convinced that Bellatrix was dead and that Narcissa had been mad. Instead, he had discovered a great swell of new problems that hit him only now as he watched a group of richly robed wizards enter into the large courtroom escorted by Romulus Redberg.

"They all think they're witnesses to the end of everything," Kingsley said pensively from behind him. Harry jumped. He had completely forgotten about the minister. His mind was racing. Narcissa had told him that it wasn't over. Could that have meant that Voldemort, just like Bellatrix, had survived his curse? Were there more Horcruxes? Is that why his scar had hurt? Narcissa had given him so precious little information.

"I have to go to Gringott's," he said absentmindedly. Part of him wanted to stay for the trial in the hopes that Narcissa would give away any more information in her attempt to escape a life sentence in Azkaban...but there was a trunk full of answers waiting for him in the Black family vault. He looked up at Kingsley who smiled knowingly back at him.

"I think you've seen enough trials now to know how this one will go, don't you think?" he said wisely, turning his eyes toward the crowd of trial goers. "Take the chimney in my office. No lines." He started toward the courtroom, and Harry marvelled at how composed he could seem after hearing such devastating news. He turned back briefly. "Be careful, Harry. Narcissa thought that you had taken her son when she planned this little journey. It could be a trap. I could arrange for Romulus to accompany you."

Harry considered this for a moment and shook his head. "I'll go alone. Redberg can tell me what I missed when I come back with the memories," and the determination in his voice ended any protest. Kingsley nodded his agreement as Harry headed quickly towards the lift.

* * *

The goblin at the door to Gringott's Wizarding Bank stared quickly up at Harry's lightning scar and touched a shiny silver bell behind him with an unfriendly scowl.

"It will be just one moment, Mr. Potter," he grumbled. Harry shifted his feet guiltily. He had become somewhat unpopular among the goblins at Gringott's ever since he, Ron, and Hermione had made their destructive escape from the vaults on the back of one of the sentry dragons. He felt a flash of amusement as he imagined the look on the goblin's face when he told him that his destination was the exact same vault that he had broken into…and out of one year ago. Then a familiar voice interrupted him.

"How may we help you Mr. Potter?" Griphook's pessimistic tones were unmistakable.

"Griphook," he stammered. The last time he had observed the tiny goblin it had been from a distance as Griphook had disappeared into a frantic crowd carrying away the sword of Gryffndor. The sword had later appeared to Neville in the sorting hat, leaving the goblins once again without their treasure. "How…how have you been?"

"I have been well, Harry Potter." He did not show any emotion that might reveal the month he had spent in close quarters with Harry planning to betray his own race for the good of wizardkind. "I have been asked to show you to the Black vault." His voice took on a suspicious tone. "If, of course, that is your destination?"

"You?" Harry asked, confused. The Daily Prophet had reported Griphook's heroic retrieval of Gryffindor's sword and his subsequent promotion Gringott's Supreme Keymaster just before Christmas. "I thought you were supposed to cater to a higher class of wizard than me now."

"I have been given this assignment especially," said Griphook. "To disuade any aspirations of…repetition." The first goblin made a guttural clicking sound that must have been an admonishment.

"There won't be any repetition," Harry said. "I have permission this time." The urgency of the situation was beginning to weigh on him. "Yes, I would like to go to the Black vault now please."

"As you wish," replied the goblin, and he showed him through one of a row of doors leading off into the hall. He whistled shrilly and a small cart came to a stop in front of them. Griphook motioned for Harry to step in first.

As the cart began its twisted descent into the deepest regions of Gringott's treasure hold, Griphook turned to speak again, yelling over the rattle of the cart on the tracks.

"There are many here who believe that your posessions should no longer be housed here, Harry Potter," he said, bracing himself for a particularly jarring turn. The cart tipped sideways and Harry was pushed toward the tiny goblin. "There are others who consider it an honor to protect them, as they owe you their lives and their well being."

Harry said nothing. Griphook's mannerisms had always given Harry the feeling that he was being mocked and judged at every turn, and he was not in the mood to argue with a goblin today. After a long pause, in which Harry guessed he was supposed to have responded, Griphook continued. "The sword is no longer in our vaults."

"I know," Harry said cautiously. "I saw it appear to someone during the battle…a Gryffindor. He used it to destroy one of the Horcruxes." The cart twisted to the left and into a darkened tunnel, saving him the trouble of having to meet Griphook's eyes. He had himself, after all, planned to keep the sword much longer than he had promised the goblin before the break-in.

"It was promised again to the goblin race," Griphook said simply.

"I can't stop the sword from showing up where it does! It didn't come to me! It's not mine to give back any more." The cart was beginning to slow and Harry saw a faint yellow light ahead.

"If it is returned by a true heir of Gryffindor, then the charm wil be reversed and it will remain with its true masters," replied the goblin over the screech of break as the car slowed.

Harry guffawed. "I hope you don't mean me!"

The goblin looked mildly affronted. "His line was lost long ago...and you are not like any other wizard that I know."

"Is that why you asked me for the sword?" Harry asked unbelieving. "You thought that I was the heir of Gryffindor?"

Frustration spread across Griphook's face as the car came to a jerking halt in front of a waterfall. Harry recognized it as what the goblin had previously called the Thief's Downfall. The year before, they had gone hurtling through it. _It seems so much easier entering the legal way,_ Harry thought.

They exited the cart onto a weakly lighted path and walked a ways in uncomfortable silence. Then Harry, aware that he was being led deep into an inescapable maze with a goblin whom he had possibly offended, spoke awkwardly. "Listen, Griphook. If it serves for anything, I would give you the sword if it was mine to give—even if I were the true heir of Gryffindor."

"Then I will wait for your return," the goblin responded, pausing at a space of blank wall. "For it is sure to come to you again in time. As I said before, Mr. Potter, you are an unusual wizard."

He ran his hand over the smooth stone and the mysterious golden outline of a large door appeared before them. Harry looked around astonished. He had not recognized where he was without the white dragon standing guard. With two of his long fingers, Griphook pushed the outline. There was a rush of stagnant wind as the door opened and Harry saw before him what seemed like a transparent field of green light. He turned apprehensively.

"What is that?"

"The sentry dragon has been retired," Griphook responded. "It has been replaced with a Truth Line. You must pass through it with no secrets in your heart. If there are any lies, then you will be closed inside. It was placed at Mrs. Narcissa Malfoy's request."

Harry frowned. Narcissa had to have known that a Truth Line would have prevented her from entering her own vault. Why had she arranged for something so drastic? _Unless_, Harry thought as he walked carefully toward the green shield_, she had been that anxious to keep Bellatrix out as well_.

Thinking of the trunk of answers awaiting him, he walked through. A warm wind swept through his clothes and tousled his untidy hair. The green field turned red for a moment and then melted away, leaving Harry with a clear path to the vault. Griphook remained dutifully just outside the door.

A year ago, he had been nearly unable to move from the sheer amount of gold and silver, goblets and jewels, but this time he entered into a half empty cavelike entrance. The ministry had stripped the Black family of all of their valued treasures to pay for the treatment of victims and family members they had tortured and killed during their twenty years of faithful servitude to Voldemort.

He passed through a row of tarnished silver candlesticks and strangely colored leatherlike skins, and rounded a corner stacked with ancient books. There, on a small thin shelf stacked to the ceiling was row upon row of sparkling potions in hundreds, or perhaps thousands of stoppered vials. The hairs on the back of Harry's neck stood on end. The memories had to be somewhere near. He scanned the shelves for any sign of a trunk, turned another corner, and discovered another shelf larger than the one containing potions. This one contained trunks of all shapes, sizes, and ages. He silently wished that he had asked Narcissa more about the memory trunk's appearance. Frowning, he brandished his wand and thought, "Accio memory!"

Just as Harry suspected, nothing happened. The Horcruxes had been protected with anti-summoning spells as well. Should it really surprise him that the memories fell under the same protection? Unable to think of any easier solution than to look through every trunk, he pulled out the lowest one and opened it. It was full of aged photographs of smiling moving wizards. Harry looked closer at the top photo and recognized the white blond hair of both Narcissa Malfoy and a baby Draco. He rummaged deeper, but did not find anything more than stacks of photographs. Perhaps these were the memories that she had spoken of. Perhaps her information had been nothing more than a clever attempt to gain more sympathy for her missing son by showing Harry how Draco had been as a child.

A strange shuffle from outside the vault made him look up.

"Griphook?" he called, worried. There was no answer.

"Are you alright?" Harry called again, louder.

"We are to remain outside always, Mr. Potter," came the businesslike response.

Satisfied, Harry turned back to the shelf, but a gleam of light from the opposite corner caught his eye. He slipped slowly over to the source. It was coming from under a very strange skin of an animal with metallic purple scales. He lifted a flap and elation overtook him instantly. At least thirty vials full of shining, flowing, nearly liquid memory sat safely in a tiny half-open trunk. Harry grabbed them up hastily and exited the vault as quickly as he could. There would be time to search for whatever Narcissa had told him was missing at some other time. For now, the priority was to find Headmaster MacGonagal and procure from her once again the all important Pensieve.

There was one triumphant moment before he realized that something was wrong. Then he noticed Griphook slumped over and unconscious on the pebbled floor and he went for his wand.

"Lumos!" he whispered, for he had suddenly become aware of the absolute darkness that had surrounded him upon exiting the cave. His wand tip lit up and illuminated a comfortingly familiar face. "Hermione?"

But it wasn't Hermione's eyes that stared out from her friendly face. Her eyes were blood red and nearly slitted, and her wand was pointed directly at him. She spoke in a voice that was only half Hermione. Harry recognized the wickedness behind it quickly. "Yes, Harry. The minister told me everything. I thought you might need help getting the locket out of the vault."

"There wasn't a locket in the vault…Hermione," he nearly whispered, certain that it was imperative to make whatever was in front of him think that he had fallen for its horrific ruse. He backed up one step for every step the Hermione doppelganger moved forward, slowly inching toward the prone body of the tiny goblin. Doubt appeared to blossom in the imposter's face as it eyed the tiny trunk under Harry's left arm.

"What are you carrying then, Potter?" It asked and surged forward to grab the box. Harry saw excitement in the bloodshot eyes, and he used the opportunity to snatch up Griphook from the cold floor.

"Stupify!" he yelled offhandedly, and he saw red sparks fly past Hermione's right ear. The thing let out a horrible laugh and looked straight into Harry's eyes, and Harry suddenly grasped the situation. He had recognized that demonic, childish laughter and he glared into the eyes to be sure. He was staring into the face of the one and only Bellatrix Lestrange, revived and transformed somehow into Hermione. He tripped on a protruding boulder and fell backwards just as her wand shot a dangerous green flash through the place his head had just been.

He sent a distracted counterjinx that hit her in the left shoulder. She spun in her tracks and fell with a yelp of pain. It gave Harry the time he needed to regain his footing and begin his frantic escape back to the cart. He ran, zig zagging as best he could with a trunk under one arm and a goblin under the other, making it impossible to fire off any defensive spells.

Twice he felt Bellatrix's curses breeze past his face, the last time coming so close that he noticed the smell of singed hair and he wondered crazily without stopping, if she had hit her target. As he emerged onto the platform where the cart sat awaiting them, he heard her scream another spell from just behind him. He whirled around in one last desperate attempt to defend himself, but he tripped on his own spinning feet and his wand flew out of his hand. It disappeared into the cart and Bellatrix's curse caught Harry in mid-fall. By pure luck, or pure misfortune, as he would come to think later, he had pulled the trunk of memories in front of him to prevent them from being destroyed as he fell backwards into the cart. The curse smashed full-on into the half open trunk, sending shards of crystal and glimmering wispy memory flying everywhere.

"Give it to me Potter!" Bellatrix screamed as he pulled Griphook into the cart and felt it begin its jerking ascent. Harry reached crazily under the seat for his wand, desperate for one last shot at the crazed Bellatrix-Hermione that was quickly diminishing into the darkness, but by the time he had righted himself, she was nothing more than a maniacal scream in the distance.

He wheeled around to look at Griphook. There was a cut over his left eye, but he was otherwise unhurt and already showing signs of waking. He chanced a painful glance at the remnants of the trunk, but it was too disappointing to look for long. Shining bits of crystal rolled around on the floor as the cart wheeled unsympathetically upward carrying the memories of a generation of Death Eaters away into the tailwind.

_Next: Revealing Bella_


	7. Chapter 7: Revealing Bella

"Honestly! You'd think they'd be familiar with Polyjuice Potion with the amount of attempted break-ins that must occur here!"ranted a very furious Hermione nearly four hours later as they watched the Leaky Cauldron disappearing slowly into the distance from the back of a Ministry of Magic issued vehicle. "I mean really! Griphook was even with us in Malfoy Manor! He saw Bellatrix torturing me! I could have lost any amount of hair then! I was practically tearing it out myself! That's all she needs, isn't it? Why didn't he say anything?"

Ron was seated beside her with a sick expression on his face. The memory of being locked in a cellar, listening from a distance and unable to help as Hermione screamed in pain was still fresh in his mind, as was the ruthless line pf goblin questioning that they had all just been subjected to.

"That's just it, Hermione," he said complacently. "They understand how Polyjuice Potion works They just ouldn't understand why it hadn't worked completely on you...her...or how you...I mean SHE got past them when she was only half-transformed without raising any suspicions."

"Or how she got to the Black vault. There was no other cart to take her there, and no goblin to guide it," added Harry. "And Narcissa had a Truth Line, so she couldn't have ever gotten in in the first place."

The goblins had closed down Gringott's immediately when Harry had entered the main lobby once again with a dazed Griphook mumbling about wizard greed, and a search had ensued from the highest tower to the deepest vault in an attempt to find Hermione's malevolent double. The search was still in progress, of course—the Gringott's vaults ran an incomprehensible distance below nearly all of London. But Harry had little hope that it would turn up more than the skeletons of a few unlucky thieves who had gotten themselves locked in years before.

Harry sat quietly on his side of the car watching the London scenery pass quickly by, and clutching the valuable remainder of Narcissa's trunk—seven undamaged memories out of the dozens that had been stored there. They were on their way once again to the ministry, where Headmaster MacGonagal had agreed to meet them with the Pensieve.

Harry's mind was reeling. He had spent the last hours telling and retelling his story to goblins and aurors and ministry agents, and finally to Ron and Hermione after both had arrived and had passed through the same merciless interrogation. He had been filled with the terrifyingly useless sensation once again of being held against his will while the culprit got away, and indeed she had. Other than the gash on Griphook's head, a small empty bottle of what had later been revealed as Polyjuice Potion, and the shattered remnants of what Harry had come to retrieve, there was no sign at all left of the Hermione/Bellatrix that had appeared out of the darkness.

The car jerked to the right slightly as a traffic light and a large amount of muggle rush-hour traffic jumped out of its way. Harry saw a small child smile at him through the back window of one of the stationary cars as they passed by. They made a sharp turn to the left, and he began to recognize the scenery. They weren't far from the visitor entrance of the ministry. Harry's thoughts drifted back to the vault. Those strange half slitted, frighteningly bloodshot eyes kept appearing again and again in his head. Why hadn't the Polyjuice Potion worked properly? Had a skilled Death Eater such as Bellatrix misjudged the amount she had to take? Had she taken so long to arrive at the vault that she had begun to transform into herself again? Harry didn't think so. Those weren't the eyes of Balletix Lestrange either. Harry shuddered to think of the only person he knew who had slitted eyes. But it couldn't have been him...his scar would have hurt in warning.

They slowed to a near stop as they entered an underground car park. The bar that kept muggles from leaving without paying lurched up and out of their way quickly and they were plunged momentarily into an underground darkness. When their eyes adjusted to the dim yellow of the artificial light, Harry saw that they were winding steadily downward into a winding muggle parking garage. The garage wall curved ahead of them, taking them downhill to another level, but instead of slowing down for the inevitable turn, the driver accelerated and drove straight into the wall. Hermione gave a startled gasp and caught both Harry and Ron's hands as the concrete structure disappeared around them, and they entered onto a brightly sunlit plain where no less than one hundred unmarked black ministry cars sat, shining in the sunlight. The car came to a stop, and Harry, Hermione, and Ron exited in quiet wonder. They came to a stop and stepped out in quiet wonder, looking back toward the wall where they had just entered. There was a vast expanse of undulating prairie grass where the wall had been.

The driver caught their attention with an unobtrusive cough. "It's Mrs. Mary Cattermole's creation. She spent last year Stateside and came back craving wide open spaces." He led them toward an inconspicuous rocky outcropping—the only outstanding object in their view, as they smiled around at eachother. Harry and Hermione had been the ones to save Mrs. Cattermole, and to suggest an elongated vacation abroad. The driver continued. "Kingsley said she could do it as long as maintenance didn't object."

"It's beautiful," gasped Hermione following the driver as he walked through solid rock and disappeared.

"Brilliant," said Ron following Hermione. Harry held the seven tiny vials tight against his chest and walked into he rock. There was a fleeting sensation of being spun uncontrollably that Harry had come to associate with floo powder, and then he appeared in the green flames of one of the ministry's entrance chimneys. Hermione was saying goodbye to the driver as she shook the soot from her robes. Just beyond the line of chimneys, Kingsley, Headmaster MacGonagal, and Percy awaited them with anxious expressions.

As soon as Harry got within arm's length of his old transformation teacher, she grabbed him in a relieved hug.

"Let me get a look at you, Potter," she said firmly, holding Harry at arm's length and examining him from head to foot. "Are you absolutely certain you're not hurt?"

Harry nodded, smiling sheepishly. Professor MacGonagal hugged him again for good measure and greeted Ron and Hermione, who had both found something suddenly fascinating on the entryway ceiling far from her gaze.

"I've grown tired of seeing you three in the Prophet headlines for such horrible news all the time. You'd think that after killing You-Know-Who, you would be able to finally have some peace!" She pushed the Pensieve into Harry's arms. "We've all watched the three of you grow up in front of us. We've grown quite fond of you, and I can't help but ask myself you couldn't just leave this one for the aurors, or someone else...Why does it always have to be you?"

No one responded. Everyone around her had asked themselves that question several times on many different occasions in the past eight years and had always come up with the same answer…of course it had to be them. There was no one else. That fate had been written for Harry ever since that horrible night in which his parents had given their lives to save him, and Ron and Hermione had unwittingly sealed their own fate that first uneventful trainride. It had been signed, sealed, and set in motion by Vodemort himself.

Judging their expressions as the only response she needed, she turne to Kingsley frustrated. "Well, let's have a look at those memories then, shall we?"

They decided that it would be best to view the remaining memories in the seclusion of Kingsley's office on Level One. They set off determinedly for the lift. A calm woman's voice announced each floor as they passed, and it was only arriving to the third or fourth level that Harry remembered he had already been to he ministry today.

'Did anything else happen at the trial?" he asked Kingsley.

"Nothing,' said Kingsley, nodding a polite hello to a stout wizard who entered, stared opened mouthed for a moment at Harry's lightning scar, and pushed the button for level two. "She was sentenced to life in Azkaban, but we all knew that was going to happen. That manor was used at the center of all dark magic."

The short wizard exited the lift among a flock of interdepartmental paper airplanes on level two, and Harry remembered Ginny. "I told Ginny that I would send her an owl!" he exclaimed.

"I can do that while you're viewing the memories," said Percy. Harry started. He had forgotten that Percy was even there. He really was good at working behind the scenes.

The lift arrived at Level One, and they exited into an empty hallway. Only the ministry's most elite were allowed on this level. Kingsley showed them into his office and shut the door behind them.

"You know the drill," he said smiling. "No visits, no interruptions."

Percy nodded haughtily and closed the door. Kingsley focused on Harry.

"How many are left?" he asked eagerly. Harry extracted the seven remaining bottles and placed them in a line on the desk—three blood red bottles, one pure white, one a brownish grey, one a morbid purple color, and the final one, a swirling dancing vial of jet black memory. He placed the Pensieve beside them and looked up expectantly at Kingsley.

"Which one should go first?"

"The red ones," said Hermione simply. "There are three of them."

Cautiously, Professor MacGonagal picked up the first tiny red vial and poured it into the Pensieve. She looked up in anticipation at Harry.

"I believe you've earned the privilege to go first, Mr. Potter," she said.

Eagerly, Harry walked up and placed his face into the Pensieve. There was the familiar feeling of feeling and the dark purple walls of what he recognized as the drawing room of the Malfoy Mansion blurred slowly into view around him. He stared at the large crystal chandelier that he had seen broken the year before, and glanced toward the large marble fireplace half expecting to find Lucius Malfoy in the ornate chair in front. Instead, he found Ron and Hermione looking around reluctantly. As he watched, Headmaster MacGonagal appeared beside Hermione, and Kingsley followed quickly. He looked around briefly before pointing to a spot somewhere behind Harry.

In the corner, sitting at a small table and immersed completely in the task of writing a letter was a younger and much happier-looking Narcissa. Her eyes had the sleepy, half lidded quality that made her look so much like her sisters, but the permanent snarl that always reminded Harry of someone who was smelling something rancid was missing from her face. She was even half smiling as she wrote. The smile gave her a completely different aspect.

Narcissa's musings were interrupted by a frantic pounding from the next room. All five of the onlookers jumped alongside Narcissa who jerked violently and gave a quick worried glance toward the stairs that Harry imagined led to the bedroom of a sleeping Draco, depending on exactly when the memory occurred. She made her way gracefully to the next room and gazed worriedly out of the side window. The spectators strained their necks to see who was making such as scene just as Narcissa gave an annoyed sigh and flicked her wand toward the door. It opened wide. Five curious figures watched as Bellatrix fell in through the door. She was much younger and much more beautiful, though the crazed expression on her face reflected a shadow of the murders that she had yet to commit.

"Bella! What are you doing here at this time of night? I'm expecting Lucius in just..."

"I'm going to Hell Cissy!" she interrupted and fell at her sisters feet clutching at her robes as Narcissa backed away in shock.

"Bella what are you…"

"I can feel her inside of me now!" Bellatrix screamed unaffected. "Look at me! Am I different now? Can you see her? It was to save her, you understand!"

The look of utter confusion on Narcissa's face matched those on every one of the onlookers. She glanced back toward the stairs once again.

"You look fine, Bella," she whispered distractedly. Please stop screaming. Draco is asleep upstairs!"

"Draco!" Bellatrix repeated, turning her wild eyes toward the stairs as well. "He's sleeping, and he's safe, isn't he Cissy? Your sweet little boy…" she leaned closer to the stairway. "What will you do when the Dark Lord comes for him?"

Harry recognized the look of savage protection that flashed in Narcissa's eyes. "We serve the Dark Lord faithfully, whatever he may ask," she hissed ominously. "You're not making any sense, Bella. Where have you been? Did you drink some kind of potion?"

Bellatrix, who was still on the floor, suddenly began to writhe. From her stance only yards away, Hermione grasped Harry's shoulder in alarm and glared from him to Ron. All three of them recognized the effects of the Cruciatus curse, but Narcissa was the only one in the room, and she had done nothing. In fact, she was bending over her sister, pleading with her to tell her what was happening. A horrible sound began to emerge from Bellatrix, and Harry realized that it was somewhere between gales of mad laughter and disconsolate sobs. It was not the Cruciatus curse after all, but Bellatrix's own raving.

"It burns!" She screamed between gushes of noise. "I don't want it any more, Narcissa, I take it back! Get it out of me!"

"What!?" Narcissa screamed back anxiously as Bellatrix's eyes rolled up into her skull, showing only whites. "Tell me what you did, Bella, and I'll help you!"

"It was for her!" she screeched. "There was no other way! She was the strongest!"

"Who are you talking about!? What did you do, Bella!?"

Ron, Hermione, Harry, Kingsley, and Headmaster MacGonagal leaned forward in anticipation. They were so eager to hear the cause of this chaos that they did not notice the tiny white head that came scampering in from the room they had all just left. He ran right through Kingsley and wrapped his arms around his mother's legs. Draco looked about two or three years old.

"Aunt Bella, leave my mummy alone!" he yelled, and with his wide eyes he seemed too pure to ever become the malevolent teenager that Harry had come to know. Bellatrix stopped sobbing and lunged toward him, but Narcissa was too fast. She grabbed Draco up in her arms and turned away.

"Leave him alone Bella!" she said forebodingly, and no doubt was left in anyone's mind who would win out if she were forced to choose between sister and son. Bellatrix did not recognize the threat, however, and she lunged again for Draco's hanging bare foot.

"Why not Draco?" She sobbed. "I don't understand, why not him? I did everything right!" She continued to pull at her sister's robes to get to Draco, who was emitting a terrified squeal and grasping at his mother's neck for dear life. Bellatrix gave one last pull, and Narcissa lost her footing. She reeled for a moment before regaining her balance, but Bellatrix had a firm grasp on Draco's little leg. Narcissa furnished a well positioned kick directly to Bellatrix's head. There was a sickening crunch as her nose broke. She wailed and retreated, releasing Draco, and curling up on the floor.

"Stay away from my son, Bella! I've warned you before!" Narcissa shrieked, backing quickly toward the stairs with her wand pointing threateningly in her sister's direction. "If you harm one hair on his head, I will KILL you!"

And the memory turned away from the thrashing figure on the floor and began to dim. By the time that Harry had looked around to see where Narcissa was headed, there was nothing left but a faint gray glow. He glanced around at the others.

"Let's go," he said solemnly.


	8. Chapter 8: Weddings and False Horcruxes

When they were all once again in their own time, Kingsley spoke grimly. "She had to have just made a Horcrux. That's what I think this is. Narcissa remembers her sister right after she made it."

The rest of them nodded without speaking. They could think of no other reason for Bellatrix's behavior.

"It made her insane," said Harry quietly.

"You mean more insane," corrected Ron.

"I want to know who she was talking about...and why did she want to get at Draco so badly?" asked Hermione.

"Well, I cannot imagine murdering a person and tearing your soul to pieces for the good of another person. How could that possibly help anyone?" pondered Professor MacGonagal.

"Maybe it was for someone she loved," said Hermione pensively. "Her mother, or sister...Bellatrix didn't have any children that weren't in the books, did she?"

Professor MacGonagal laughed. "She hardly seems the type to sacrifice her soul for a member of her family, Ms. Granger. In any way, Bellatrixand Rudolphus never had children. It was quite a scandal in some of the more wealthy social circles when she was first married. Bellatrix was...well, she couldn't have children."

She blushed slightly and both Kingsley's and Harry's eyebrows raised in amusement. "You travelled the gossip cicuits, Minerva?" asked Kingsley with a smirk.

With a contemptuous look at Kingsley, she started toward the next red vial. "I don't think any of the gossip that I've heard in my lifetime is going to help us at all," she answered kurtly. "There's no point in discussing rumors if the facts are in this next little bottle, is there?"

There was a communal nod, and she exchanged the first memory for the next one. It settled in the Pensieve like liquid crimson smoke, and Harry wasted no time in placing his face once again into the ancient blue bowl. He fell through the surface and into what seemed to be an elaborate banquet hall filled with smiling, chatting people. Harry recognized many of them. A superior looking Nott and Mulciber were whispering to each other in a corner, and Travers and Rookwood were gathered around a much younger, but no less conceited Lucius Malfoy, who was clothed in very ornate dress robes.

"The hall is impressive, Malfoy," Rookwood was saying, "I bet it took a fat lot of galleons to steal it from the Prewetts. I heard they had reserved it nearly two year ago for their daughter's wedding."

"Yes, well, it wasn't a matter of money, of course," replied Malfoy haughtily. "A marriage so encouraged by the Dark Lord these days provides a great deal of…influence in the ministry."

So someone was getting married. Harry turned away from the three Death Eaters in search of a bride, and found her on the other side of the great hall. Bellatrix was standing motionless and solemn in her shining purple satin robes. She still held the wedding bouquet, though the look on her face was not that of a normal blushing bride. Her features were fixed in stone hopelessness. She was not looking around at her laughing, dancing guests. She was not seeking the face of what must have been her new husband, Rodolphus Lestrange. In fact, she did not even seem to be conscious of the celebration going on around her at all. She stared straight ahead with the same numb expression, and did not react in the slightest when Narcissa appeared at her side to congratulate her.

"Bella, you are radiant!" she said genuinely. "I'm sure you will have a long and happy life with dear Rodolphus. He is an extremely talented wizard."

Bellatrix flinched at her words, but she did not meet her sister's eyes. Instead, she said in a monotone voice, "We thank you, dear Cissy. I am sure we will be happy."

Narcissa stared at her sister, puzzled. "Bella, is something wrong?" she asked. "You do not seem yourself today. The Dark Lord even commented on it before he left."

At the mention of Voldemort's presence, Bellatrix seemed to brighten. "What did he say?"

'He told me that he was quite alarmed that he seemed more content on this glorious day than you," Narcissa revealed. "He advised me to help you to see what a wonderful match this is...do I need to?"

Bellatrix's face darkened. "Did the Dark Lord tell you how long he would be gone, Cissy?"

"Of course not!" replied Narcissa quickly. Bellatrix resumed her stony gaze. Narcissa made a second attempt. "What a lovely necklace!" she said too sweetly, and made to touch the glittering trinket that hung around Bellatrix's neck. "Was it a gift from Rodolphus?"

Bellatrix tore away from Narcissa's grip as if her touch were searing pain. "Do not touch it!" she hissed, and Harry saw red glowing momentarily in her eyes. He turned to see if anyone else had noticed. Hermione was nodding back at him. Narcissa seemed to have noticed as well, for she retracted her hand very quickly, and fixed her sister with a worried gaze.

"It was a gift from the Dark Lord himself," presumed Bellatrix, staring straight ahead once again. "It is a great honor to receive such a thing from him…an honor you have not earned."

Harry moved closer to look at the necklace. It was a heavy gold locket, tarnished and faded with age. It did not look like anything that would normally stand out, and yet, Harry had the faintest idea that he had seen it somewhere before. Could this be the locket that Bellatrix had been after in Gringott's? He looked at Ron, who wore the same puzzling look upon his face.

Narcissa smiled complacently at her sister. "It is a truly great gift then," she sighed. "I can only hope one day to earn such a privilege from him."

At this comment, Bellatrix adopted a look of pure horror. She fixed upon her sister for a moment and whispered in a shaking voice, "Cissy, pray that you never earn such a great and terrible privilege. Pray with everything that you have that he never confides in you the things that he has confided in me."

"Bella, what do you mean?" Narcissa asked in alarm, but at that moment, Rodolphus interrupted them. By the way that he was walking, it was obvious that he had been at the bar with his brother.

"How is my dear…new bride today? He slurred, and the memory began to fade. Harry tried to steal a last look at the locket around Bellatrix's neck, but Rodolphus was now hanging from her, blocking it from view.

"Harry," Hermione said as they came out again in Kingsley's office. "I've seen that necklace before. It's the one you and Dumbledore brought back from the cave!"

Harry's heart nearly stopped. He HAD seen the necklace before…had, in fact, carried it in his pocket for many months, taking it out religiously and pondering over it, wondering where the real locket with the real Horcrux could have been. He should have known every last engraved detail of that locket. He frowned.

"But I must have opened it a thousand times," he said. "The only thing ever inside it was a note from Regulus. I know what a Horcrux feels like, and that locket certainly didn't feel like a Horcrux, if that's what you are thinking."

"But you didn't know how a Horcrux felt when you had thatone, Harry," replied Hermione. "Besides, who knows if all Horcruxes are alike. We felt it when we had Voldemort's Horcruxes, but maybe that's only because he was such a powerful wizard."

"It doesn't matter right now whether or not it is the Horcrux," Kingsley interjected. "That's what Bellatrix is after. That's how we'll find her. Where is it now?"

A cold chill ran down Harry's spine. He had given the locket to Kreacher as a gift. He had inadvertently made Kreacher Bellatrix's next target. "Kreacher has it! At the house!"

Ron shrugged. "Call him," he said simply." Kingsley shook his head.

"He won't be able to apparate from inside your house," he explained. "We put some of our most modern protection spells on it. They make it impossible, even for house elves."

"He'll be fine as long as he stays at Grimmauld Place then Potter," reassured Professor MacGonagal. "Still, I wonder if it wouldn't be prudent to bring him to your office, minister."

Kingsley nodded as Hermione stood up. "I can get him," she volunteered. "I wanted to talk to Ginny and Mrs. Weasley anyway...send a message with Pig that no one is under arrest. You all find out what's in that third red memory."

Ron stood up to go with her.

"Don't be stupid, Ron!" she said nonchalantly. "Grimmauld Place is probably the safest place in all of England right now." She walked toward the door. "I'll be back before you even leave the Pensieve."

"Please, take my personal chimney," said Kingsley, pointing her in the opposite direction. "It has been getting more use today than it has in the past four or five months!"

With a reassuring glance at Ron, she grabbed a small handfull of floo powder and disappeared into the green flames. Harry replaced the memories once again and gestured for Ron to enter first. Kingsley had to nudge him before he noticed the invitation, as he was still staring worriedly into the fire.

"If I wasn't convinced that she's headed for complete safety, I wouldn't have let her go, Ron," he said.

"Nor I," reassured Professor MacGonagal. "Now, let's see what else, Mrs. Lestrange has been up to, shall we?"

Ron nodded half-heartedly and looked deeply into the Pensieve.

Harry followed quickly after wondering how long it would take Bellatrix to find Kreacher if he left the house.


	9. Chapter 9: The Horrible Power of Memory

He fell into what seemed to be the exact same place in Malfoy Manor that they had entered with the first memory. The violet walls, the crystal chandelier, the tiny drawing table where Narcissa had sat before writing a letter…everything seemed to be exactly the same. This time, however, Narcissa was not at the table. She was not writing peacefully, and she did not have a smile on her face. As Professor MacGonagal and Kingsley fell into rank once again with Harry and Ron, Narcissa passed by them, pacing frantically around the living room. Her face had conformed to the arrongance inevitably brought in time to women of her rank, and her expression was one of angry disgust. There was a loud sobbing from in front of the fireplace.

"Please, Cissy! Please!" The voice begged, and all those present knew it belonged to Bellatrix. "I don't want to live with the pain any longer!"

"You can't ask me to do it!" hissed Narcissa from across the room.

"Not _everything_!" asserted Bellatrix desperately. She climbed from the chair she had been sitting in and took a step towards her sister. She was not yet the twisted skeleton of a woman that Azkaban would later make her, but the lines on her face told of the many deaths that her hands had caused. "Not anything but the memories I ask of you!"

"No, Bella!" snapped Narcissa in a voice loud enough to stop herself from pacing. She glared at her sister. "You will bear the loss of the Dark Lord as we all have had to! Why would your suffering warrant such terrible measures?"

"I've told you, the Dark Lord is not gone!" Bellatrix shrieked in retort. "He is weak and in hiding! He needs the loyalty of his faithful servants! I have tried to find him, but my efforts have been useless and the last two people who knew of his whereabouts are no longer able to speak!"

Narcissa gave her sister a cold stare. "The Longbottoms' inability to speak is _your_ doing, Bella," she said. "You took it too far, and now any information they have will go to their graves with them."

Ron looked horrified. "Poor Neville," he said. "His parents must have just been tortured."

Bellatrix was moving closer to her sister. "That is why I come to you tonight!" replied Bellatrix. Narcissa rolled her eyes in frustration and turned to leave the room.

"Cissy," Bellatrix said from behind her with a strangely emotionless certainty. It caused Narcissa to stop and turn again. "If you do not do this for me, I will kill myself tonight."

"I wish she had," whispered Ron from beside Harry.

Narcissa stared at her sister in frightened disbelief. "You would take your own life for the mere memory of the Dark Lord?" she asked, shocked.

"I would take my own life for the secret I hold inside my head."

They stared at each other for a moment--one in disbelief, and one in desperation, and then Narcissa's proud shoulders sagged. She walked to her sister's side and they both sat down.

"Very well," said Narcissa with deep regret. "Show me this secret that you cannot live with, and I will Obliviate it."

She put her wand to her sister's temple and drew out a long thin velvet string that swirled and writhed and seemed to attempt to enter once again into Bellatrix's own mind. She touched the wand and the memory to her own temple and her eyes went instantly blank. After a few moments of silent waiting, Harry shifted his feet in frustration.

"Why can't we see what she's seeing?" he asked.

"It's the memory of a third person inside the memory of a second," replied Professor MacGonagal. "I'm afraid it's quite impossible, Mr. Potter."

Kingsley shushed them quickly, for Narcissa had drawn a sharp intake of breath, and her face was now contorted into a disgusted grimace. Her breath was coming double, and she closed her eyes in what seem almost like pain.

"Oh Bella, _no_!" She cried. "You couldn't! You didn't!"

"Take it from me, Cissy. Please." Bellatrix whispered.

"Then the locket is…"

"Take the locket as well! Hide it! Destroy it! I don't want to remember anymore!"

The string of memory that seemed attached to both of them vanished in a puff of purple smoke, and Narcissa pointed her wand once again at Bellatrix.

"You deserve to live with the pain of this memory for the rest of your selfish life, you know," she admonished.

A sob escaped from the shaking figure of Bellatrix. "I know, dear sister, but I am not strong enough, and it will drive me mad in the end." She fell to her knees. "Take it, Cissy...please!"

"I'll do this, Bella, and you may forget," Narcissa said with a tinge of hatred in her voice, "but I never will. I will never forgive you for this."

And with her final words, she raised her wand dramatically above her head as Ron and Harry had once seen Gilderoy Lockhart do to them.

"Obliviate!"

There was a flash of light and Harry felt himself propelled out of the memory. The force with which he appeared back in the office caused him to trip backwards into Kingsley's plush office chair. He looked around and saw that the others had landed in equally ungraceful stances. He did not stop to think.

"It was purple!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet and pushing over to the desk and the four remaining memories.

"Potter, what are you…"

"The memory that she shared with Narcissa was purple!" he explained. "We have a purple memory right here. This could be it!"

"No it couldn't, Mr. Potter," corrected Professor MacGonagal. "We just saw that memory destroyed."

"But couldn't Narcissa have kept it? Couldn't it have been recovered?" he asked stubbornly.

"I'm afraid not, Harry," replied Kingsley. "Not with that spell."

There was a moment of frustrated silence, broken by Ron. "Hermione's not back yet," he said with a worried glance toward the fire. Harry appeared not to hear him.

"It doesn't matter if it's that memory or not!" he asserted. "It's still _her_ memory, and it's still going to lead us closer to finding her! Let's go!" He scooped up Narissa's memory and poured it back into the vial.

"Shouldn't we wait for Hermione and Kreacher?" protested Ron. "i mean, even that memory showed us how important that locket is. Shouldn't..."

"What good is having the locket if we don't even know what it's for?" interrupted Harry. "This memory could show us what it is!"

No one tried to speak. They gathered around the Pensieve as Harry poured in the fourth memory and there was a shuffle as four heads tried to enter at the same time. Harry fell second…or third, it didn't matter to him. They landed in a small crowd of children who were seated on the floor all around them. Harry surveyed the scene and was surprised to find that they were in Sirius's house. He recognized the moldy, darkened walls of the parlor that had only recently been repainted by Kreacher. One of the walls was covered from ceiling to floor in an elaborate tapestry.

"That's the family tree that's in the bedroom on the second floor!" exclaimed Ron, pointing to a spot near the top right corner. "Look! That's where Sirius's mum…" but he had to stop. Sirius's name glowed gold and unharmed where there was now a great blackened hole.

Ron stared, confused. "But Sirius showed us th hole. He said his mother took his name off when he left," he said.

"That must mean this memory is from before he left," responded Harry.

A firm voice interrupted them. "Listen up, children!' it said, distracting them from the tapestry, and causing a shift in attention to the young audience, who were gathered around a rather cruel looking, somber woman. She was seated like royalty in a high backed chair with a large, ancient book held lovingly in her arms. Harry remembered her face all too well, as he had a shrieking, cursing portrait of her that still hung in the entrance hall. It was Sirius's mother.

"You are all here to hear the tale of your noble ancestry. I expect you all to listen attentively as you will be the ones to carry on one of the purest bloodlines in the entire wizarding world. You must all take this into account as you go forth into your lives, and carry yourselves with the dignity required of a Black."

Three of the young girls in the front row shifted eagerly to listen more closely. Harry felt Kingsley's hand close on his shoulder.

"That one's Bellatrix," he said, pointing to the elder of the three girls. She looked about twelve or thirteen, and she was smiling arrogantly at her younger sisters who both bore proud, studious expressions. Harry turned his attention quickly to the line of younger boys sitting behind them and quickly picked one out. He smiled. He was staring at a four or five year old Sirius. Even at this age, Sirius wore the signs of his coming mischievousness. Harry wondered where Sirius's little brother was before it dawned on him that Regulus was probably still too young for the infamous bloodline lesson. Sirius was smirking as he covertly placed the tip of his youngest cousin's long blond braid into an ink bottle. His mother, who had not seemed to notice, continued in an increasingly haughty tone.

"As you are all aware, our family tree, which includes Headmasters, school founders, Ministry Heads, genius conjurers, and even royalty, is recorded on the timeless masterpiece that hangs behind me." She ran a hand tenderly over her name on the tapestry, and then traced the line slowly down to her own father. "My father, Pollux Black was rewarded the Order of Merlin, first class for special services to the ministry of magic. I have been told that the magic he was required to perform to carry out such a great service was nearly impossible for any other subject."

Bellatrix drew in an adoring breath. Harry saw Professor MacGonagal roll her eyes in disgust. Sirius had explained to them before that his grandfather's only real service had been in the form of a great amount of galleons. Sirius's mother's hand continued to slowly trace the generations.

"Arcturus Black, known as one of the greatest duelers of his generation." She moved lower. "And there's the great Phineus Nigellus. I'm sure Bella and Andromeda have seen the portraits of their late great-great grandfather, a former headmaster of Hogwarts. Then there's Elladora, his beautiful sister. She died too young to pass on that beauty, the poor dear."

Harry saw Sirius roll his eyes and dip his cousin's braid deeper into the ink jar. He looked disappointedly to Kingsley, who was gazing at the tapestry with the same expression that Harry wore every time he had listened to Professor Binns in his old History of Magic class. This was definitely not the memory that they had hoped it would be. They would not find any answers in this memory. Everyone seemed to have the same disappointment written on their faces as Mrs. Black continued to drone on.

"There's dear Margaretta, who was cruelly banished by our own kind and forced to find solace as a caretaker for the last royal family of Russia. Filthy muggles, the lot of them. She led the assassins straight to the children the day the entire family was replaced by a more…pure line, shall we say."

"That's horrible!" whispered Professor MacGonagal.

"And if we continue back, we find those who believed even more in the noble cause of wizard superiority. There is Aunt Erzebet, who had eliminated nearly 600 muggle girls before they caught her and burned her…No trial at all, poor woman."

"We're wasting our time here," Harry said determinedly.

"And the great Ethelred, who was king of all of England around the same time that the founders of Hogwarts were beginning with their ideals. He ordered the expulsion of all Danes. It was a delightful massacre. All muggles, of course. There are so very few Danish wizards, you know."

Ron's face was frozen in disgusted horror. "Sirius had a horrible family!" he said quietly.

"He was never proud of it," replied Harry.

"Here's dear Aurora Black, who had the sense to begin the tapestry that we are admiring today…"

"I must remember to thank old Aurora," said Ron sarcastically.

"And of course, we must never forget our most talented, most famous ancestor, Elmina Draven, who through a very intelligent marriage gave our noble family the priviledge to claim heritage to the great Rowena Ravenclaw. You see here, her children, Ella and Elias..."

"Sirius was a descendant of Ravenclaw!" exclaimed Harry. "He never told me anything about that."

"Only distantly," said a voice from behind them. Harry turned quickly and saw Hermione looking concerned. "I only found it when I was looking for information on Bellatrix, and it's only mentioned in one place. Besides, you know that Sirius never cared about his lineage. Look at him there!"

In fact, Sirius had now given up on Narcissa's braid and had moved quietly over to that of Bellatrix. He did not seem to be taking in a word of his "noble and most ancient" lineage. Harry could not blame him. He silently wished that the ink were enchanted with a balding charm.

"You took forever!" exclaimed Ron, giving Hermione a relieved hug.

"Harry, there's a little problem," she began, but just then, Bellatrix noticed a tug on her hair and jumped up in alarm.

"You little criminal!" she screamed at him, and produced her wand from a secret pocket inside her dress. Before anyone could react, she had performed the spell.

"Crucio!" she screamed, and the five year old curled into a ball, screaming.

"Bella!" yelled Mrs. Black in shock from behind her. "Bella, you'll be expelled! You still have your trace!"

Bellatrix did not stop. She looked invigorated as she pointed the wand closer and listened to Sirius's pitiful sobs.

"Bella stop!" screamed Andromeda from beside her, and she pulled out her own wand.

"Expelliarmus!"

Bellatrix's wand flew from her hand. She turned viciously toward Andromeda and slapped her hard in the face. "Don't you EVER do that to me again, Andromeda!" she hissed and stormed from the room. Harry and the others were forced to follow, but not before Harry looked back, and saw a look of frightened immobility on Sirius's mother's face.

"I haven't gotten to the book yet, Bella," she called weakly after the furious adolescent who would later become a mass murderer.

Narcissa contemplated running to Sirius's side, but she veered to pick up Bellatrix's wand instead at the last minute and hurried after her. Hermione stepped between Harry and the little boy Sirius who was crying on the floor with a trickle of blood running from his left ear. She blocked him from view as Harry stared in helpless fury and the memory faded away.

"Harry!" she insisted. "I couldn't find Kreacher! He left a note that he went on errands to Diagon Alley!"

"Let's get out of here," Harry said through clenched teeth. "There's nothing here that will help us. If Kreacher's out of the house, I'll be able to call him now."

They entered into their own time sullenly. The only purple memory...the only one that was genuinely from Bellatrix herself had proven to be nothing more than proof of her pure blood--a fact that had never been in doubt...nor had it ever been of any importance whatsoever. He slammed his hand down on the desk in frustration.

"Harry, we'll get more answers when you call Kreacher," Hermione insisted.

"Yeah," said Harry distractedly. "Kreacher!"

Nothing happened. They waited for several more moments.

"Call him again," said Kingsley nervously. Harry did. Kreacher did not appear.

"He is still bound by his race to obey you, is he not, Mr. Potter?" asked Professor MacGonagal.

"Of course," Harry said, worry creeping up into his chest. If Kreacher was not responding, it was because of a magic stronger than the magic that bound him to obedience. He looked around the room. Every face held the same unspoken certainty...

Bellatrix had found Kreacher.


	10. Chapter 10: Search and Rescue

Before Harry could move, or even fully grasp the situation, Kingsley was headed toward the door, and MacGonagal toward the satchel of floo powder that hung from the mantel of the office chimney. She was followed closely by Hermione.

"He left a note saying he was in Diagon Alley?" Kingsley asked tensely. Hermione nodded from across the room.

"Then that's where we'll have to go first," said Professor MacGonagal, grabbing Ron and Harry by the collars and dragging them with her toward the fire.

"Wait!" said Kingsley, and stuck his head out the door. In the outside office, Percy stood up, confused. "Percy, I want you to get me two aurors from the department as quickly as possible. Bring them up here, now." Percy took off.

Five minutes later, they were emerging from the chimney of the Leaky Cauldron in search of the tiny house elf with two aurors that Percy had brought up to Kingsley's office without the slightest explanation why. After the not-so-subtle prompting of nearly everyone there, Hermione had reluctantly volunteered to return to Grimmauld Place in case Kreacher had already made his return journey and had been once again under the protection spells by the time Harry had called him. Ron was still in possession of the false galleon from Dumbledore's army, and the plan was to send him a message with it if Kreacher was at home. They decided that the best way to find any evidence of either the house elf, or an undead Rogue Death Eater would be to split up and begin asking the shopkeepers. Ron went with Kingsley and a grim dark haired auror known in the department as Scrubs to search Knockturn Alley, while Harry headed straight for the Apothecary with Professor MacGonagal and a cheery red-haired woman named Finnean.

It proved a much more difficult job than it seemed. Every witch or wizard with a house elf had apparently sent them to Diagon Alley on errands that day, and at least twice, Harry had to apologize to a petrified elf that he had grabbed from behind and scared nearly to death. The shopkeepers merely stared in sarcastic annoyance when they asked if anyone had seen a house elf wearing a pillow case, and some even broke off into nervous laughter when it was hinted that there may be someone similar to the infamous Bellatrix Lestrange following him.

At one point, Finnean paused and pointed at an elf who was stopped in front of a small newsstand. He was reading the latest headline of The Quibbler: _Bellatrix Lestrange resurrected!_ Harry started forward, but realized from the small patch of black hair on the very top of the elf's head that it was not Kreacher. He read the rest of the headline:_ Chaman from Timbuktu Revives Famed Death Eater to be his Bride. Exclusive Honeymoon Photographs!_

He stifled a laugh in spite of himself and thought of Luna, who was now in her final year at Hogwart's. He wondered if she would take her father's place as editor when he finally decided to retire.

The sun was beginning to set and half the shops had locked up for the night when they entered the last corner shop before Diagon Alley turned into Knockturn Alley. It was a dank looking bookshop. Many of the books seemed to have already half disintegrated in their places on floor to ceiling shelves, and there was a burrowing owl in a bottom corner who seemed to have a made his home under the tattered remnants of old pages. The shopkeeper smiled shiftily at them as they entered.

"You the one's wandering around looking for an elf and a dead woman?" he asked mockingly.

"I assure you that this is not a joke, sir," Finnean replied sternly. "This is an urgent situation."

"Yeah, I know," said the shopkeeper with the same shifty gaze. "I saw the elf you're looking for. Went walking past here not five minutes ago headed toward Knockturn." His eyes shifted to Harry, found his scar. "Was talking to himself about you. Saying something about being your elf now and not owing nothin'." He grabbed a book from behind the counter and brushed off the dust roughly. "Didn't see any dead woman around him though. Could be cuz it's not night yet, though. Can't see ghosts in the daytime too well, can you?"

Professor MacGonagal thanked the bookkeeper and the three of them headed in the direction the he had pointed. It led them straight into Knockturn Alley. The streets were narrower and darker there, and it seemed to them completely plausible for Bellatrix to jump out at them from any gloomy shop entrance.

Suddenly, Professor MacGonagal stopped cold directly in front of him. She was pointed at something small across the street. Harry followed her finger and saw an overgrown vacant lot where there had once been a building. It was now reduced to rubble, and nature had done it's best to reclaim the space. There, nearly hidden behind a savage looking vine, was Kreacher. He was carrying several shopping bags and he seemed to be twitching and wriggling uncomfortably, as if he were covered in Nargles.

"That's him!" he said. The three of them started carefully toward him.

At that moment, Kreacher bolted from behind the vine. The twitching and twisting worsened and became convulsions, but he managed to keep his feet for a few yards before he stumbled, face first into what looked like an Abyssinian Shrivelfig. In his attempts to regain his footing, his eyes fell on Harry, who was now halfway across the street and headed quickly in his direction. He smiled weakly and started to say something.

That was when the spell hit Harry in the stomach. He was thrown violently backward and landed once again on the far curb of the street. He had not heard it or even seen the flash of light, but he found himself with the wind suddenly knocked out of him. Professor MacGonagal spun in her tracks and made a line directly for Harry.

"Potter! Are you all right?" she bellowed.

"I'm fine," wheezed Harry. A shout from Kreacher had caused him to rise again. The elf was shaking his head profusely as Harry had seen him do when he profoundly disliked something he had been ordered to do and, as he rushed back toward the opposite side of the street, he saw Kreacher yanked by his neck to human eye level and shaken violently. His cries became lounder and Harry heard his deep voice bawling, "No, Miss Bella! Kreacher will not! Kreacher is not your elf anymore!"

"She's there!" he yelled to his two companions, who had also drawn significantly nearer to the tiny struggling elf. Finnean drew her wand.

"Stupify!" she called, pointing to the place slightly to the right that looked like it would be the source of poor creature's distress. There was a popping sound and the elf fell with a small thud. He ran, sobbing toward Harry. The locket was hanging limply from his neck on a broken chain, but it was still there.

"Master Harry!" he cried, lurching toward him and causing Harry to nearly fall backwards. "Miss Bella isn't dead, sir! Poor old Kreacher wanted to obey, but Miss Bellatrix held him. She's powerful, Master Harry, sir!"

Harry looked distractedly to the place that Finnean's spell had hit. He had heard the ominous pop that meant she had escaped, but he wanted to look for himself. Bellatrix must have gotten hold of an invisibility cloak. It was the only explanation for it. Any Disillusionment charm that she could have employed would have failed when she was hit by Finnean's spell, even if she had not been knocked unconscious.

Professor MacGonagal and Finnean were already there, feeling around blindly on the ground being scrutinized now by dozens of onlookers.

"Kreacher, what did Bellatrix say to you?" he asked the terrified elf.

"She wanted Master Regulus's locket, sir!" he sobbed. "Kreacher told her no, and she…she…" His voice broke off into unintelligible gasps. Harry waited impatiently for him to recover. "Miss Bella isn't nice anymore, Master Harry! She wanted to kill poor Kreacher!"

Harry slipped the locket gently from Kreacher's neck. "I'll return it later, Kreacher. I promise," he said, and then left Kreacher on the curb to join in the search. After a few moments, Ron, Kingsley, and Scrubs came around the corner and, encountering the bawling house elf, joined the search as well. They all felt around for nearly five minutes in the intersection between Knockturn and Diagon Alleys. When it was obvious that they were not going to find an unconscious, invisible Bellatrix, they checked the surrounding shops, but it was no good. Both Finnean and Professor MacGonagal knew as well as Harry what the popping sound had been. Bellatrix had escaped yet again.

Finally, Harry was able to turn his attention again to the shivering house elf. He turned the ancient locket over in his hand, opened it, stared at the empty inside compartment for a moment, and then down at Kreacher.

"Did Bellatrix say why she wanted Regulus's locket?" he asked.

"She said it wasn't Regulus's to give, Master Harry," replied the elf. "It was hers before it came to Regulus, you see."

"Did you see her wear it?" asked Kingsley.

"Yes, Mr. Minister, sir. She was never without it."

"What did she use it for?" asked Ron.

"I don't know, sir," said the elf, a bit calmer now. "Kreacher imagines that it is to look at the one in the picture."

Harry frowned down at him, confused. "But there isn't a picture in the locket," he said. "Was there one from before?"

"Not always sir," Kreacher mumbled. "Not when Miss Bella was alone, but sometimes when _he_ was in the house, there was a picture in it. It would only appear for _him_."

"Him?" asked Harry. "Do you mean Voldemort, Kreacher?"

Kreacher nodded. "He was the only one who could ever find the picture. Without him, Master Harry, there is no picture."

"Did you see the picture?" asked Professor MacGonagal hopefully. "Do you know who it is?"

"Not up close, missus," whined Kreacher. "Not enough to see the face. Miss Bella left always to be with the picture alone."

Harry stared at the empty open locket in frustration. Not without Voldemort, who was finally rotting in his grave. He swore under his breath—another piece of the puzzle, and another useless dead end.

* * *

The sun was sinking slowly over the lofty buildings of Diagon Alley as the party made their somber way back to the ministry with the locket in hand. Despite what Kreacher had told them, they had all taken it in turn to look it over, firing every magic revealing charm that they could think of. When that had not worked, they had discussed the possibility of the picture being in a secret compartment of the locket. They had experimented with every possible opening and unlocking charm, and when that showed no desired result, they had finally resorted to brute strength, knocking it on the stone steps outside of Gringott's as they passed until they were afraid of breaking it.

Nothing had worked. In the end, they had been able to keep it from Bellatrix, certainly, but with Voldemort dead, he doubted that they would ever find what use she could have made of it. Kreacher had given them valuable information, however. Bellatrix did not seem not be looking for another Horcrux. She was, in fact, looking for a person. _What person_, Harry wondered as they entered the Leaky Cauldron. _Could it be another Death Eater?_ Harry shuddered. _Could it be Voldemort himself? Was anyone absolutely sure that he had only made seven Horcruxes?_

"Harry?" interrupted a familiar voice. "Ron? What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be at the ministry?"

Harry looked up to find Ginny and Mrs. Weasley taring in bewilderment at the surly party of six that had just entered.

"Ginny!" he said, and rushed ahead to hug her without thinking. "We were looking for Kreacher."

Mrs. Weasley gave him a quick hug as well before pushing over to Ron, and wrapping him in her arms. He resisted, looking embarrassed.

"We were too!" exclaimed Ginny. "Hermione seemed so worried in her message. She said he'd gone to Diagon Alley, so we came to find him! What did you need him for? Why couldn't you just call him?"

"We needed the…" Harry began, but Professor MacGonagal let out a simulated coughing sound that stopped Harry's words in his mouth. He flinched.

"He had something we needed," he said. "We found him. I sent him back to Sirius's house."

Ron let out a muffled laugh. "Ah! Who are we kidding?" he jeered. "She already knows about the memories. We all know she's going to find out everything else the moment Harry's alone with her. He can't keep a secret from her. We might as well tell her now."

Professor MacGonagal looked annoyed, but she did not protest further. "Perhaps," she insisted instead, "the Leaky Cauldron is not the most intelligent place for this sort of conversation, however."

Harry nodded and looked back at Kingsley. "Back to the ministry then?' he asked.

Kingsley shook his head. "Unless you can think of anything else that would lead us to Bellatrix tonight, I vote we continue this in the morning," he said, and now that he mentioned it, Harry was feeling exhausted. He had been running non-stop since before sunrise.

Ron didn't seem as keen to give up for the night. "But we still have three memories…"

"That can wait until tomorrow," interrupted Professor MacGonagal. "I believe two encounters with Bellatrix Lestrange in one day is enough for anyone, don't you agree, Mr. Weasley?"

After a moment of silent, open-mouthed protest, Ron's shoulders slumped in unenthusiastic agreement.

"Then it's settled," came a rather relieved reply from Mrs. Weasley. "The boys will come home with us, and they'll be at the ministry first thing in the morning!"

"Sounds wonderful, Molly, thank you," Kingsley said, and then, turning to Harry. "Would you mind if I took the…" He looked around suspiciously. Harry handed him the locket, noting the look of frustrated curiosity on Ginny's face as she followed the trinket from one hand to the next. He had the funny feeling that he would be paying for making her wait this long to find out.


	11. Chapter 11: The Locket Game

_A/N: Sorry this took so long. It's been a long hard summer so far, but hopefully I can get more done now!_

"Come on Harry, you can't be that tired!" mocked a grinning Ginny some time later after a long dinner. Harry, Ron and Hermione had relayed to the rest of the Weasley family the results of the impromptu interview and the failed journey into Gringott's. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had listened carefully, but weren't able to offer anything more than opinions. Mrs. Weasley had seemed baffled into a rare silence that her efforts to rid the world of Bellatrix had not been permanent. This made it much easier when the time came to excuse themselves to the privacy of Ron's room where Harry could add the details that he would eventually break down and confess anyway.

"Ginny, this is serious!" snapped Harry, absolutely confused, and angry that she had not taken the day's disappointments as seriously as he would have imagined.

"I know it is," she said, stifling her laughter instantaneously. "Harry, I don't know why you can't see it…" She paused as if giving him time to figure it out on his own. Harry shrugged expectantly, and she continued. "Think about it…can you think of any other place that only Voldemort could get into?"

Harry's exhausted mind was drawing one blank after the next.

"Perhaps no one except maybe Voldemort and you…"she prompted, and then her face went deadly serious. "…and me…under his power?"

And finally it came to him. The Chamber of Secrets! He beamed at Ginny.

"Parseltongue!" he exclaimed. "Of course! I don't know how I could have been so dense!"

"Tonight you can blame it on the trial...the two Death Eater attacks...the assault of a goblin and a house elf in your presence...oh, and the three trips into other people's memories," she said ironically. "But the next time all that happens in one day, you're expected to think for yourself." He threw his arms around her and kissed her deeply. She kissed him back.

"Are you two finished yet?" came Ron's voice from the hallway. "Mum's about to make me and Hermione listen to Melena Button's Advice for Lovelorn Witches, and if I have to suffer through that…"

"We're done!" Ginny grumbled, pulling away reluctantly. Ron stumbled in gratefully. "We weren't doing anything anyway." She kissed Harry innocuously on the cheek and slipped out the door. Ron brandished Harry an accusatory glare.

"You better not be letting her think that she can help us with this," he said. "She's still underage, you know."

"I know," said Harry with an excited smile. "But she just helped me figure out the locket!"

"What…" Ron began.

"Parseltoungue! I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but Ginny figured it out before I was even done telling her!"

"Of course she did," Ron replied huffily. "She's a Weasley, isn't she?"

* * *

The next morning, promptly at nine, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were in the Atrium to meet Kingsley, who looked like he had already had an eventful morning.

"The Profit did a report on our excursion yesterday and now the aurors are bombarded with hundreds of sightings of Bellatrix, Rodolphus…We've even had nine or ten sightings of Voldemort!" He sighed deeply and headed toward the lift. "One 'Voldemort' was a hag who was furious that we knocked over her cauldron full of…who knows, and one turned out to be a Dementor projection from your brothers' shoppe, Ron!"

Ron looked guiltily at his feet. Harry smiled. "Well I've got some news that may cheer you up," he said. "Ginny figured out how to make the locket work."

"Really!" exclaimed Kingsley as the elevator announced Level Three: Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. "How?"

"I'm going to speak to it in parseltongue," said Harry. Kingsley looked just as shocked as Harry had felt the night before.

"Six years as the head of the auror department, and it never occurred to me!" he said regretfully. "I sent the locket with Minerva to Hogwarts." All three sets of shoulders sank in disappointment as the lift slowed to a stop on Level One. "I'll have Percy send an owl immediately. The headmistress is just as eager to find out what purpose that thing serves as we are. In the meantime, let's have a look at the rest of those memories, shall we?"

When Percy had been sent running to the owlery, and the three of them were successfully shut in Kingsley's office once again, Harry stared over at the three remaining viles…one grey-brown, one white, and one jet black. He closed his eyes and grasped one. Cautiously, he poured its grey-brown contents into the Pensieve. They gathered around unenthusiastically and plunged their faces into the bowl.

Kingsley's cheerful, quiet office disappeared. It was replaced by a thick, musty darkness and the steady sound of a rainstorm. They looked around and found themselves in a narrow back alley. The rain poured down around them, soaking cloth overhangs, flooding the cobblestone beneath their feet and dripping from every outlying feature with the exception of the four figures superimposed in a memory. Aside from the rain, there was nothing moving within eyeshot.

"What do you think…" Ron began, but a running shuffle from the back of the alley caused him to stop. A dark cloaked figure was walking quickly and determinately towards them. As they watched, a second silhouette entered the alley, clearly in pursuit of the first man.

"Brother, please!" the second man yelled. The first shadow did not slow his angry pace. "I didn't understand what he was! Please stop!"

The first man stopped and turned violently. His hood fell and the yellow lights revealed a handsome bushy haired young man.

"Harry! Do you know who that is?" asked Ron excitedly, but Harry recognized him instantly. His heart skipped a beat. It was a young Sirius. In fact, his godfather must have been about the same age as he was now.

"No, Regulus!" he shouted back. "I don't care! You made your choice years ago! I had to leave my own home! My own family!" There was a fire in his eyes that Harry had never seen. Twelve years in Azkaban had taken it from him by the time Harry finally met him. "I fight against you…_people_…now!"

"I'm not one of them anymore, Sirius!" Regulus pleaded as he followed his brother into the light. He was emaciated and haggard, but he had the same angry eyes as Sirius. His expression was grim and desperate.

"I don't want to hear it!" Sirius shouted. He was shaking with the force of his anger. "Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater." He turned to leave the alley, thought better of it, and turned again toward his brother. "Be careful the company you keep, Regulus. The next time that I see you, I may be forced to kill you." His face was emotionless, and Harry knew that it was not an idle threat. "I've had years to make my peace with that."

"You won't see me again, brother," replied Regulus solemnly. "I'm on my way to Hell tonight."

"Good!" Sirius bellowed. "You were headed there eventually anyway!" He turned away and the fruitless pursuit began again.

"Wasn't much the forgiving type, Sirius, was he?" whispered Hermione.

"You wouldn't understand," said Harry. "You're family cares if you live or die."

"Sirius's did not have a good childhood," asserted Kingsley. "I was surprised he even lived through it. It was a miracle that he turned out so well."

The two brothers exited the alleyway followed closely by Hermione, Ron, Kingsley, and Harry. Regulus grabbed Sirius's shoulder and swung him around. Harry noticed a flash of gold as his sleeve pulled back—just a quick flicker and then gone. He blinked and looked again.

"Sirius, in case I don't return tonight you need to know that the Dark Lord has made…" But Regulus did not finish his warning. Sirius's fist came out of nowhere and hit him square in the face. He was thrown to the ground with his lip and nose bleeding.

"Voldemort will NEVER be a Lord!" Sirius shouted, and he disappeared into the night.

"Harry, I think he was going to tell Sirius about the horcruxes!" said Ron. The memory began to fade to grey, and then became clear again as Regulus faded in and out of consciousness.

"I think you're right," Harry replied absentmindedly. He was headed toward the prone shape on the ground in front of him. Regulus's sleeve had rolled up enough to reveal a chain tightly wrapped around his wrist. There was an open gold locket hanging from it. It was the locket that Professor MacGonagal had now in her possession.

Regulus curled in on himself, and then pushed into to a sitting position, dripping blood freely from what must have been a broken nose. To the astonishment of all three of the onlookers, he laughed and stood up.

"Kreacher!" he called into the night. There was a pop and Harry's inherited house elf appeared in the street.

"Master Regulus! You're injured terribly!" he whined, but Regulus rejected Kreacher's efforts to heal him.

"I'm fine!" he grabbed the elf by both shoulders. "Kreacher, I order you to show me where the cave is."

"Master, no!"

"I don't want to hear it!" shouted Regulus. "You are my elf. You follow my orders! Show me now!"

With a look of terrified reluctance, Kreacher grabbed his master. There was another faint crack and they both disappeared. The memory turned instantly grey and they came out again in Kingsley's office.

"Well, that didn't give us anything!" groaned Ron, settling into Kingsley's desk chair. "We already knew what happened to Sirius's brother."

But Harry was silent and stiff. "It did tell us something," he said menacingly. "It told us that the Bellatrix's locket and the one that we have aren't the same."

"What?" asked Ron, baffled. "How do you figure that one?"

"We should have figured it out before, of course," Hermion cut in. "The timing was completely off."

"But that doesn't explain why she's still looking for it," said Harry.

"Maybe she doesn't know," Kingsley speculated.

Ron let out a loud sigh. "Does anyone want to explain to me what they're talking about?" he said, aggravated.

"Ron, Regulus had the locket hanging from his wrist," Harry explained patiently. "He was headed for the cave, and from there, we all know where the locket went. How could that locket be around Bellatrix's neck years later when she asked Narcissa to erase her memory if it was stuck in the bottom of…whatever that potion was?"

Disappointed understanding dawned on Ron's face. "So we're back to the beginning," he said. "There's a Death Eater that's supposed to be dead who's looking for a locket that was supposed to have been in a cave for over twenty years!"

"Lets have a look at the other two memories," Kingsley suggested. "Put in the black one. That has got to be from one of the Malfoys."

Fighting back his own disappointment and wondering what good any of it would do if they didn't have the original locket, Harry poured the black memory into the Pensieve. The texture of the memory seemed somehow off—perhaps more smoke than liquid. He was reminded of Slughorn's modified memory from years before. Kingsley noticed as well, but he shook his head and moved toward the bowl. The only way to discover the difference was to continue. Harry fell into line behind the other three and delved into the next to last memory.

He fell into one of his own nightmares.

It was unlike any of his other journeys into memory. He hit the ground with enough force to send pain running up through his spine. Cringing, he realized that he had fallen into a dark room at twilight. The features around him were fast becoming nothing more than silouettes. He looked around for his three companions, and his eyes fell instead upon the cold, cruel snake-like face of Voldemort only inches away from his own...and what was worse, the red eyes _saw_ him. He let out a terrified shout and inched backwards in a panic.

"Ron!" he shouted, looking around him desperately. "Hermione! Kingsley! What's happening?"

A high, maddening laughter was his only answer. "You should have expected this," Voldemort hissed at him. His voice did not have the same power behind it as when Harry had confronted him in the Forbidden Forest, but it was enough to turn every muscle in his body momentarily to rubber. "You could never have lived up to my expectations."

He pointed his wand at Harry's heart. Harry's reaction was more instinct than anything else. He kicked out with all his force toward the half-human form looming over him, and used the leverage to roll out of the path of the wand. Regaining his footing, he ran as fast as he could toward anything that could shelter him from the curse that he knew was coming.

At least, his reaction occurred perfectly in his head. He could feel the impact of his feet against the white, weakened chins of his nemesis. He could smell the dew in the grass as his body curled and rolled through it to maintain fleeing position, but when he chanced a glance back to see if Voldemort was in pursuit, he found himself suddenly prone on the ground in the same position as before with the "Dark Lord" glaring down at him and a wand now poking into his chest.

"What is this!?" he screamed in frustration. "Is it another Horcrux? How do you see me!?"

But, though Voldemort appeared to be able to see him, his words did not seem to enter into the same plain, and he received no response.

"No! My Lord, please!"

The cry came from a shadow that had been cringing in the corner. The voice was that of Bellatrix, and Harry had only heard it's particular tone once before. It was the same crazed panic as she had shown in the first memory. Harry tried to use the momentary distraction to strike out again, but, though his mind and body seemed to function, he found himself once again in the same place.

"You have no power to sway my decision, Bellatrix!" Voldemort responded without emotion. "Stay in that corner like a good servant, or you will receive more…training."

Bellatrix recoiled, but she did not remain silent. Instead, she tried a different, more docile approach "My Lord, I am only afraid that you lack the strength to perform the curse! What would happen if the scene with the Potter boy was…"

But Voldemort reacted instanaeously and furiously.

"Crucio!"

And Bellatrix was screaming and convulsing in the corner. Harry pulled his wand from his pants pocket.

"Stupify!" he yelled. Nothing happened. In fact, he discovered that he was confined to the same position with his wand still in his back pocket. His head was nearly exploding with an aggravating confusion. Why couldn't he do anything?

Voldemort had turned his attention once again toward Harry. This was a nightmare. It had to be—perhaps the memory of a nightmare. What else could it be?

"You could never be my key to immortality!" Voldemort hissed. He raised his wand above his head, but the tip was still pointed directly at his heart. Harry knew what was coming next. Voldemort only bothered with one particular curse when it came to him. He closed his eyes and hoped for the possibility that it would all end once again with a pleasant conversation with Dumbledore in King's Cross Station.

"Avada Kedavra!"

The light from it pierced even his tightly closed eyelids as it struck him directly over his heart.

_Up next: The Immortal and the Thief_


	12. Chapter 12: The Immortal and the Thief

When he opened his eyes, he was in a bright, open space. The air smelled enjoyably of fresh ink and wood burning in the fireplace. From where he lay, he could see the solid square shape of a desk within reaching distance. This wasn't King's Cross, but it seemed pleasant enough. He wondered if he was back in Dumbledore's office…but that was years ago…

"Harry?"

It came from so far away, and it didn't sound like Dumbledore at all. The voice was too deep…too commanding.

"Hermione? Ron?"

But surely they weren't here. They had not been under Voldemort's wand. How could they be dead as well?

"I'm DEAD!" Ron howled, and this time, it seemed as if he were very close…perhaps even in the same room. Harry looked to his right. Sure enough, Ron was lying to his left with his hands pressed over his eyes as if afraid to look around.

"Don't worry, Ron," Harry tried to reassure him. "Death isn't bad at all. Nothing hurts anymore."

But it suddenly dawned on him that something _did_ hurt. He had landed on his back in the Penseive, and now his entire spine was singing. His elbows too were bruised, and as he looked down at them, he saw a faint spot of blood that had soaked through his robes.

Ron removed his hands from his face. "That's easy for you to say, Harry. You've already died before."

A laughter from came behind the strange desk and both heads turned. Kingsley was propped feebly against the wall on the far side of the room. "I bet not too many people can say that!" he chortled. His laughter seemed to wash away the general confusion.

They were in Kingsley's office! They weren't dead! It had only been a part of the memory! An overwhelming joy spread like liquid warmth over his entire body, and he rejoiced at the stab of pain from his elbow as he got to his feet and extended an arm first to the minister, and then to Ron, who had acquired and ear to ear grin in only seconds.

"I thought I was a goner!" he sighed with a relief that was written across all three faces. "It was You-Know-Who! He got me right in the heart! Blimey Harry, is that how it really is when…you know?"

"Yeah," replied Harry sarcastically. "Except you don't wake up in the ministry of magic." His brow furrowed in thought. "I couldn't find any of you. Did you all see the same thing I did?"

"If you're asking if we all got the killing curse right to the heart, I think the answer is yes," croaked Hermione.

"I've never seen a memory like that. Why was it happening to us?" Harry asked. "How could Voldemort see us?" He noticed that Ron had resumed the habit of flinching at the name.

"I don't think he could," said Kingsley gravely.

"What do you mean?" asked Ron. "He came right at me! He talked to me—told me I wasn't going to make him immortal, or…something."

"I heard that too!" said Harry.

"We all did," replied Hermione matter-of-factly. "That's why we know he wasn't seeing us. He did the same thing to everyone. Did any of you try to fight back?"

"Of course I did," snapped Harry. The other two nodded incredulously.

"Did you get very far?" Their silence was answer enough. "I think that we were in a memory of a nightmare."

Kingley shook his head. "Can't be," he said. "That would fall under a third party memory. You'd be seeing the memory of a memory. It just can't happen."

"Well it couldn't have been a real memory then," insisted Hermione, frustrated. "I've read enough about them to know that memories can't be extracted from the dead, and that curse hit home!"

Ron was convinced. "Yeah, so unless that was Harry's memory…"

"And it wasn't!" interrupted Harry.

"Or someone just as immortal as him…" Harry rolled his eyes.

"Then it had to be a fake!"

Kingsley seemed to be considering the possibility when a small voice interrupted their conversation. "Excuse me, Minister," Kingsley looked up at a painting of a small house elf wearing a royal red turban. "Headmaster MacGonagal is requesting permission to transport to your personal chimney."

"Of course she can," said Kingsley quickly. Moments later, Professor MacGonagal was stepping from the fireplace. She gave a tiny sneeze before handing the locket to Kingsley.

"I'd hoped those memories would help you figure it out," she said hopefully.

"Don't expect much, Minerva," responded Kingsley. "The memories didn't help at all. Ron's sister figured out another method, though."

"Who, Ginny?" said professor MacGonagal sounding overly impressed. I must remember to add five points to Gryffindor for…something, this afternoon when I see her."

Harry smiled and took the locket from Kingsley. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself in the presence of a snake. It had been over a year since he had even thought of using parseltoungue and he was out of practice.

"Open," he commanded, and looked questioningly at Hermione. She nodded. The locket, however, did nothing at all. He tried again.

"I order you to open!" Still nothing. Thinking quickly, he added, "Please?"

It remained dead weight in his hand. Professor MacGonagal sighed. "Well, I suppose it was worth the try," she said dejectedly. "Tell me what the last memories were about, then."

For the next ten minutes, she sat in Kingsley's chair listening to the disappointing and confusing results of their morning. When they were finished, she leaned back, apparently in deep thought.

"Well, Ms. Granger's right, of course," she said pensively. "There's no way to take a dead man's memory." Her brow furrowed. "What you're describing sounds like an Unaware."

"What's that?" asked Ron.

"It's quite rare, of course," explained professor MacGonagal. "It occurs when the person from whom the memory is extracted has no idea of their own appearance. You can imagine how many people there are who have never seen themselves in a mirror, and even then, most people form at least a blurred image of what they must look like."

"So you're saying that what we saw is a memory of a person with no memory of himself?" asked Hermione, as if what she were saying were something absolutely simple to comprehend.

"Exactly, Ms. Granger! But that still doesn't answer the question of how it became an addition to the trunk if its owner was dead!"

"Well, Minerva," interrupted Kingsley. We still have one vial left. Would you like to see what answers we can get out of it before you return to your duties?"

Professor MacGonagal gave him a look that clearly expressed what she though about asking questions with obvious answers. Kingsley replaced the mysterious black vial with the final white one. They gathered around one last time and took turns entering into one last memory.

They fell into a large brick room lit by torches. Harry looked around at the seeming endless amount of galleons, goblets, expensive furs, strange metallic objects, and every other symbol of wealth that one could possibly imagine, and didn't need to glance at his two best friends to know that they both had an idea of where they were. All three of them has been here before…Harry twice, and the last time only yesterday. They were in the Black family vault.

Kingsley looked around, mouth open. "I wasn't aware of how much wealth the Blacks had," he said in awe. "There's probably more in here than in the goblin's own personal vaults."

"Yes, the Blacks had there galleons and pur blood," responded Professor MacGonagal bitterly. "Look where it got them in the end."

Harry looked away miserably. The noise of something—probably something valuable—falling from behind one of the closest shelves caused them to jump. The crash was followed quickly by a low stream of swear words.

"Careful, Nott," hissed a low familiar voice. "Some of those have been in my wife's family for years." It was Lucius Malfoy. Harry followed the rest of his companions as they hurried past the shelf toward his voice. Lucius Malfoy was standing over the hunched figure of his fellow Death Eater. He looked exactly as Harry remembered him. This must have been a modern memory.

"That old thing?" Nott replied. Harry arrived just in time to see him kick a silver goblet nonchalantly under one of the shelves. "That's not worth a galleon! None of this stuff is!" He ran his hand over a series of plates and utensils. "We should be able to store our _real_ valuables in these vaults."

Lucius's sly eyes darted toward the door, "I have no idea what your talking about, Nott," he said a little too loudly, and then, softly only to the cloaked figure beside him. "Don't you understand the importance of keeping up appearances here?"

Nott also gave a worried glance toward the door, which was more than likely being watched by a goblin and then shrugged. "They've got to keep the secrets, right?"

Draco, don't touch anything!" snapped Lucius suddenly. Harry looked around and saw the white haired boy with his hand half in, half out of what looked like one of the jars that the Egyptians used to stored their pharaoh's internal organs. Harry grimaced as memory flooded over him. This was Draco as he had first known him..the little boy who had set a snake on him in second year during their first dueling practice. He winced. Had they all been so young?

Lucius had leaned closer to the other Death Eater. "I don't care what their job is," he whispered hostilely. "You will keep your mouth shut unless you want to end up like the majority of the owner's of this vault."

Nott nodded tensely. He didn't meet Lucius's eyes. Instead, he let his gaze wander toward a pair of shining goblets housed in an ornate display case. "Those are very interesting." He said, pretending to be suddenly enthralled.

Lucius resumed his arrogant manor. "They are both very valuable, of course."

Harry cringed as he recognized Hufflepuff's goblet as one of them. He was staring at one of Voldemort's yet undestroyed horcruxes. There was a crash from the other rack. Draco peeked meekly around the corner.

"Sorry," he nearly whispered.

"You're sorry!" boomed Lucius. "Get over here, now! This is your inheritance! I can't believe you would behave like such an idiot." He grabbed Draco by the scruff of his neck and pushed him lightly into a corner. "Stay there until we are ready to leave!"

Draco sat down with a thwarted look on a box covered lightly by a strange purple skin.

"What exactly are we looking for?" asked Nott.

"A small, leather bound book," replied Lucius, turning over a different skin and uncovering a trunk full of random parchments. "It would be rather worn. I could swear that I left it near the cup…"

Harry saw it. It was under the box that held the two goblets. Malfoy was looking for Tom Riddle's diary. Nott's eager hands closed over it even as Harry, and Ron behind him seethed. That diary was headed for Ginny's arms in only a few more minutes, and it would take possession of her only a few months later. That made two horcruxes in the vault.

"Is this it?"

"Perfect!" said Lucius.

"Harry, look!" whispered Hermione. She was looking toward Draco. He had removed the purple skin and opened the box. Harry let out a snort. Draco was now examining a small bottle of black memory. It was the same box that this remembered image would be found in years later.

Draco's father turned abruptly toward him and the memory, and he let the vial slip roughly back into the box, putting on what was probably the most innocent face that he could muster. It didn't matter. Lucius was clutching a bag of galleons lost in thought.

"I wonder how much more I would have to take out to buy those brooms," he was saying. He looked angrily toward his son. "I will see you on that team this year if it kills you." Draco dropped his gaze and began rummaging awkwardly through the box again. His had seemed to find something, and he pulled it up. Hermione pushed Harry out of the way in her anxiety. Draco was now looking at the exact golden locket as the one that thye knew what at that very moment stewing in an evil stew in the middle of a lake of dead bodies. As Lucius turned away still scolding him, Draco began to appraise it, holding it up to the light.

"Honestly! How that whining, insufferable Potter child could get on the team before you…He's lived as a muggle his entire life!" Nott laughed nervously. Lucius sighed. "Let's go Draco."

They turned to leave the vault and the memory began to fade out, but not before all of them—whose eyes had not left the locket—were witnesses as Draco let it fall inconspicuously into his pocket.

"Draco's got it!" exclaimed Ron.

But that fact did not improve their moods as they came out into Kingley's office. Hermione was the first to voice her disappointment.

"Well, now what can we do?" she grumbled, not really expecting an answer. "If Draco's even still got the locket, then we're stuck because we can't find Draco!"

Harry was decidedly more optimistic. "But at least we now that if he has it, then he's not with Bellatrix."

"How do you figure?" Hermione asked.

Ron piped in cheerily, obviously elated that he had figured something out before his girlfriend. "Honestly, Hermione, think!" Hermione rolled her eyes at him. "Do you think that Bellatrix would be running around all over the place, letting herself get seen if she had that locket right there with Draco?"

"He could be hiding it from her," suggested Kingsley.

Harry shook his head. "Not from Bellatrix," he insisted. She was giving him occlumency lessons in our sixth year, but I don't think he could have gotten good enough to hide anything from her. She was supposed to be a very good occlumens."

"Well where does that leave us, then?" asked Professor MacGonagal.

They all looked at each other hesitantly, each unable to admit what every one of them knew. Where exactly where they?

At a complete dead end.


	13. Chapter 13: NEWTS

There was nothing more they could do. Ron and Harry had no options other than to follow the aurors on as many reported sightings as possible. They wasted their time in fruitless searches for more dead ends. None of the sightings they had been on had turned up more than a neighbor with a grudge. To their dismay, after a while, even the sightings became few and far between as the Death Eater fervor finally drew to a close, and the Daily Profit was no longer running a daily column on the whereabouts of Bellatrix Lestrange.

They had returned to normal living in 12 Grimmauld Place with heavy hearts. When the days turned to weeks and the warm, sunny weather began to remind them all that summer holidays were close around the bend, Hermione began to return once again to the subject of their N.E.W.T.S. She had kept graciously silent about them during the first few days of panic, and had kept to mere reminders of the homework that was due as the general frustration of losing their quarry had set in, but as more and more days passed without the slightest sign of evil aunt or nephew, Harry noticed her visibly more strained whenever she asked them about the week's homework.

In an attempt to avoid Hermione, he found himself spending more time in the ministry vaults going over old information and hoping for something that he had missed. Finally, he reached a point where he could no longer fool himself. There was nothing that he had missed.

Letting out his last breath in a disappointed puff, Harry put down the papers that he was rereading and put his hands to his temples, trying to console himself with thoughts of tomorrow. He would be travelling to Hogsmeade to meet with Ginny and a few of her friends. They had asked for help with the practical part of their Defense Against the Dark Arts N.E.W.T. The idea of seeing Ginny's cheerful face and having a whole day to spend time with her was growing more and more appealing by the second. She had been away at Hogwarts for way too long as far as he was concerned.

He also had a surprise in store for her. An owl had interrupted their dinner that day with a message for all three residents. Harry had read it aloud for the benefit of everyone at the table.

To Mr. Harry Potter, Mr. Ronald Weasley, and Ms. Hermione Granger,

Due to the unusual circumstances in the N.E.W.T. scheduling this year, all those students who missed the exams the following year are formally invited and greatly urged to reside in Hogwart's for the week that the exam requires. Quarters will be provided for all, and arrangements for travel have been prearranged. Please report to the Leaky Cauldron promptly at 11:00a.m. Sunday, the 10th of June.

Sincerely

Headmistress Minerva MacGonagal

Hermione had looked confused. "But I've already taken the N.E.W.T.S. Why would they want me back?"

Ron had snorted lovingly. "What? You think that just because you took them last year, their going to tell you, 'Sorry, all your friends are gonna be back there, but you can't come cuz your smarter than the rest of us!'? Not too likely."

Harry had smiled and headed quickly up to Sirius's room without another word. His mind had been on Ginny's reaction when he told her that he would be able to be her personal tutor for a whole week. He was sure the weekend was going to be wonderful.

The weekend _was_ wonderful. Harry spent the day travelling to all of his favorite stores hand in hand with the most beautiful girl in the village. After a round of butterbeers with Ginny and her friends, they had all made their way happily back to Hogwarts—the only place where they could all practice defense spells without the threat of expulsion. Harry had felt so exuberant that he barely noticed the looks of fear and awe on nearly every face as he accompanied the four girls to an empty classroom. They locked the door behind them to avoid any interruptions, and it was there that Harry chose to tell Ginny about his coming week in Hogwarts.

"I was wondering when you were going to get to that," she said, smirking.

"You knew?"

"Of course! MacGonagal told us a few days ago!" She smiled knowingly. "I was hoping you'd want me to help you brush up on your Potions."

And so it was with an ecstatic lightness of foot that Harry entered the Leaky Cauldron on the tenth of June. He, Ron, and Hermione met an eager Seamus Finnigan waiting in the entrance.

"Hey you guys!" he greeted them a bit nervous. "Have you been studying this year? My parents have been trying to make me, but it's going to be so much easier at Hogwarts again!"

They all got in line behind two Ravenclaw girls that Harry didn't recognize. Mrs. Weasley fussed and fretted around them, exactly as if they were eleven years old and on their way to their first Hogwarts feast. When it was their turn, she hugged them all in turn.

"Mum, we're only gone for a week!" Ron exclaimed, annoyed. "You'd think we were headed off to Azkaban!"

Mrs. Weasley brushed his comment off with a flick of her wrist and passed him the floo powder. "Tell your sister that we miss her, dear," she said, and then Ron was gone in a flash of green. Harry and Hermione followed.

Ginny was waiting for them with an enormous grin as they each came out of the Gryffindor chimney. Neville and Luna were by her side. He rushed past them momentarily and gave Ginny a hug to match the size of her grin before turning to his other two friends.

"Hey, Harry!" came Neville's friendly greeting. "You'll never believe it! We have our exact same beds!"

They split up, the girls chattering excitedly as they made their way up the stairwell to their quarters, and the boys pushing and shoving to be the first to arrive at the place where they had all been so happy. Harry felt every dark memory of the last six months slowly fading away as it began to sink in that he was going to be allowed to be nothing more than a student for the next week. It was much easier than he had imagined to sink back into this role.

That night, he lay in his four poster bed with the curtains drawn around him, listening to Neville's snores and staring up into the familiar darkness of the room—his room—at Hogwarts, and he couldn't help but smile. He had spent the most perfect day studying with Ginny and Ron, greeting and regreeting all of his old schoolmates and teachers, and exploring all of the secret passageways that the castle held. Somewhere out in the night, a dangerous Death Eater was lurking, anxious for the chance to exact her revenge. Somewhere in the Slytherin house, a bed sat cold and empty, awaiting a student that was nowhere to be found. But for now, as the moon crept slowly behind the astronomy tower in its endless journey across the night sky, these thoughts were completely overshadowed. For now, Harry Potter felt like the luckiest wizard in the world.

The next morning's schedule was significantly less stress-free, however. The theory sections of both their Potions and Herbology N.E.W.T.s were scheduled for that day, with the practical sections later that afternoon. The general attitude at breakfast was one of tension as many students tried to get in a bit of last minute cramming. Harry silently thanked Hermione for six months worth of constant nagging. He felt prepared. Ginny, however, looked a bit green when he met her in the Great Hall for breakfast. She had her Herbology book open, and was alternating between it's yellowing pages and her notes.

"Don't talk to me until after the test," she said nervously as he kissed her lightly on the cheek. Hermione, who was seated next to her, smiled knowingly.

In the short break between the theory and the practical, Harry suggested that they make the trip down to visit Hagrid on the edge of the grounds. Ginny bowed out, claiming study time. The other three walked freely down to the cabin, watching a beautiful golden hawk flying gracefully over the ground in search of a meal.

Hagrid was ecstatic to see them. "I knew it was only a matter of time before your three would come down to see me!" he bellowed, patting Ron on the head so hard that his knees buckled. "How'd your first round of tests go, then?"

"Great," moaned Ron. Hagrid looked at him puzzled. "I'm just thinking of how long it'll take Hermione to lose the know-it-all grin she's got on now. It's because of her that we're doing so good."

They all stared amusedly over at Hermione, who was conveniently following the hawk's progress through the sky, but looking as if she had only recently cleared her face of just such a grin. Hagrid invited them in for tea. They accepted happily.

"So, you three, what changes have you noticed?" he asked, pouring teas into three cups the size of soup bowls.

"Not much," admitted Harry. "It's like coming home again."

"Yeah, except to a better home because Malfoy's not here to ruin it," added Ron. Hermione scowled at him. Harry and Hagrid frowned as well.

"Any news on that front?" Hagrid asked, obviously not wanting to spoil the good mood.

"Nothing yet," replied Harry, glowering.

Hagrid quickly changed the subject. "Well, I wish we could go back a few years to the day when you three were first years," he said. "The kids nowadays haven't got the respect they need for their teachers. I'm trying to catch one right now who keeps stealing things from my food stores…right out from under my nose!" He glared over at the enormous boarhound asleep in the corner. "And Fang's!"

"That sounds like something Fred and George would have done," snorted Ron. There was a flash of pain as he remembered Fred.

"Nah," negated Hadrid. "They never stole nothin' from the teachers. Only took what the house elves gave 'em. This one's down to outright thievery!"

Hermione took a gulp of her tea, and then looked over at a shoddy looking clock on Hagrid's mantle. She choked.

"We've got to go! You two have the Potions practical in ten minutes!" she exclaimed. The three of them jumped up in alarm. The time always passed so fast when they were talking to Hagrid. They turned toward him guiltily. He shrugged them off.

"Get out of here!" he laughed. "And don't let me hear about any low marks!"

The rest of the week flew by much like their Monday, with large random doses of stress that always seemed to turn up directly before certain N.E.W.T.s. After the Herbolgy exam, Ginny seemed to be in a much better mood, and Harry was free to spend the time that he was not studying in her company. They escaped from the castle as much as possible, avoiding the probing eyes that seemed to follow Harry and his scar wherever they went. They passed the time walking down by the lake, and laying in the cool grass discussing their exams and their futures, watching the now familiar golden hawk as it circled high above their heads, and vehemently avoiding any talk of once dead Death Eaters.

The expression on Ron's face as he walked out of the final practical exam—Astronomy—caused everyone around him to laugh. It was a mixture of pain, confusion, exhaustion, and relief.

"No tests…ever again," he mumbled in a slight daze. Hermione laughed.

"You're in the auror program!" she snorted as they followed the eager crowd back to the Gryffindor common room. "You've got years worth of practical exams yet."

"Well, that's not the same. Truffle Tart!" he spoke to the Fat Lady. The portrait opened to a spectacular amount of noise. The fifth years had finished their O.W.L.s much earlier, and their end of exam celebration was in full swing. A pretty blond girl danced over to Ron and Harry as they entered. She smiled up at them with bright blue eyes.

"Will you join us?" she asked, paying no attention at all to the fuming red-head on Harry's left arm. Harry turned his eyes to Ginny questioningly.

"Let's go up and put our books away first," she said, civilly enough, but Harry wasn't fooled. He smiled. A little bit of jealousy wasn't going to kill her. After all, he had once had to suffer through and entire six months of imagining her and Dean Thomas snogging around every corner.

They all went up to the boys quarters. Hermione left to put her books away, but Ginny sat on Harry's bed, and watched as he put his books into his trunk, smirking. He liked feeling her eyes on him, even if it was just for a moment, and even if her brother was only yards away and watching their every move. He grinned over at her when his books were stowed, and found that her eyes were not on him, but at the window, gazing puzzled at a small form.

Harry followed her gaze. It was the hawk that they had spent so much time following through the sky. He opened the window, and it flew in. As it did so, the tiniest flash of gold caught Harry's eye, and he followed the bird where it landed just out of reach on his bed. Their eyes lit up in shock. Wrapped double around the bird's feathered neck was a small gold locket. The oval charm that was so exactly alike the one in Harry's possession right now was swinging innocently from the hawk's golden breast. They all looked at each other, frozen.

Ginny reacted first. She made to grab the hawk, but it let out a furious screech, and flew towards the closed door. At just that time, Hermione reentered the room, causing a flush of feathers as the bird quickly changed course and escaped out into the hallway. They gave chase without pausing to explain.

There was a frantic dash to the common room, where the bird escaped effortlessly through the portrait hole when two first years entered. They received the fright of their lives as it flew directly at them, followed by four frantic seventh…and eighth years. They chased it down the corridor and out into the entryway. It seemed to know exactly where it needed to go to escape. It paused at the large doors, but soon found the tiny window above that was always left open for owl post. Without a second thought, Harry opened the doors and ran into the night. It flew in tiny circles always just ahead of them, always frustratingly far out of reach until it lighted on a high branch at the border of the dark forest.

They stared up at it curiously, but it did seemed secure enough with the distance between them to remain motionless. Harry took out his wand.

"Accio…" But at that moment, a crack from the forest caught their attention, and suddenly four lighted wands were pointed threateningly at a slight figure that had been hiding just beyond the light. Harry's mouth dropped in shock. Ron managed a low rumbling sound, and Hermione actually dropped her wand. Ginny simply stared silently at the gaunt figure that was advancing toward them cautiously, hands held high in a gesture of peace.

Draco Malfoy stepped humbly from the bushes.


	14. Chapter 14: The Face in the Locket

He was frightened and disheveled. His clothes were worn and mud stained, and his eyes darted everywhere at once, searching for dangers that were not there. He kept his hands held high as he edged toward them, keenly aware that the three people still holding their wands did not lower them. Harry saw no reason to do so. He thought quickly.

"Is she with you?" he demanded.

Draco looked fleetingly up at the hawk, and then back at Harry. "No," he said, and then looking around him, paranoid. "Please, Potter, can we go into the forest?"

Ron snorted and moved his wand higher, pointing directly at Draco's nose. "Do you think we're idiots?" he asked.

Turning toward Ron without even the slightest hint of the malicious arrogance that had been his calling card, Draco spoke in the trembling vibrato of the terrified. "Please, I'm not trying to trick you. I needed you to come tonight. I need to talk to you, but not here."

"Is she near here?" Harry persisted, looking suddenly in all directions at once. Draco looked at the hawk again. It stared regally down at him without moving, it's black eyes taking in everything.

"No," he repeated.

"Have you been with her then?"

"No!" Draco reacted quickly this time, offended. He chanced a step toward Harry, who did not lower his wand. "I've been…hiding from her…in Spain." The hawk gave a short sharp screech. Draco winced. Something suddenly clicked inside Harry's mind. He pointed his wand at the bird.

"No!" Draco yelled, suddenly diving for Harry's wand. Ron reacted quickly and intelligently. He stuck out one large foot and Malfoy fell face first at their feet. The bird screeched again and jumped down to perch beside its master. Harry followed it with his wand.

"What's with the bird, Malfoy?" he asked forcefully. He expected Draco's face to be an arrogant mask of humiliation as he rose. He had seen it many times in school, and he had come to expect it after every row.

But it was not arrogance that showed as his old school nemesis picked himself out of the mud. His face was clouded only with concern as he turned his back on the four of them, and focused only on the bird. All four wands pointed in unison at the target of Draco's affections. He seemed to be whispering something to it.

"Just don't hurt her, please," he said, not turning, and if Harry hadn't known him better, he could have sworn he had heard a note of true humility in Malfoy's voice. He felt Ginny's hand reach out to restrain him as he stepped foreward, curious.

"The bird could be her," she whispered in his ear. "Bellatrix could be an animagus."

"It's not her!" said Draco desperately, holding out his hand as if to shield someone from an imaginary spell. He continued to talk in a low soothing tone to the bird. When he turned around, he had the locket held at arm's length. The hawk was hiding in his shadow.

"I know you've been looking for this," he said complacently. Harry was reminded of the muggle movies where the police officer was trying to talk someone in from a ledge. "Please, you can look at it in the forest." His eyes began circling again. "Only a little further in. Everyone can see us here." He shivered, and Harry could have sworn he saw the bird shiver as well. Draco looked down sympathetically at its golden feathers.

"We need your help," he said simply, pushing the locket toward Harry. Harry took it, puzzled, and followed Draco warily into the brush until the castle was almost completely obscured by ferns. The others followed, their wands pointing in all directions, unknowingly forming a protective circle around Harry. Old habits died hard.

The bird continued to cower just behind Draco. Harry fingered the locket, and then took a long worried glance at the hawk.

"You knew she was looking for it?" he asked him.

Draco nodded. "She went to the house first," he said. "Then to the vault. When she couldn't find it, she came after me in St. Mungo's."

"Why didn't you report her?" asked Ron bluntly.

Draco's glance shifted once again toward the hawk. A relfection of his old sneer appeared momentarily on his face. "My father's in Azkaban and you're hunting my mother down like a dog. Let's just say I didn't trust the ministry."

Harry twirled the locket in his fingers, utterly unable to think what to do next.

"You went to Spain?" he said, not exactly sure where this line of questions was taking him.

"Yeah," Draco replied, eying the locket impatiently. "Are you going to open it, or what?"

Harry stared at the locket blankly. In his wildest imaginings, he could never have guessed that he would be holding the key to this newest mystery by the end of the night. He was suddenly drawing a blank as to what to do next.

"Parseltoungue," Ginny reminded him in a whisper.

With one eye on Draco, and his wand pointed poignantly at the bird, Harry tried to imagine a serpent crawling slowly toward them. It was easier than he had expected in the dark underbrush. There could have been any number of creatures just beyond their line of sight tonight.

The imaginary snake appeared for Harry, almost as if it were real. He tried to block out the rest of the distractions and to speak only to it. _Open up_. The words came out in a series of hisses. There was a tinny click, and the locket opened. With their wands still threatening, all four of them gathered around to finally see the secrets of Voldemort's gift to his favorite Death Eater.

It was a picture…nothing more. In it, a little girl no older than six or seven years old, was crouched, frightened in the shadow of some other figure. The picture was not big enough to see who that other figure was. Harry looked closer at the little girl, wondering how this locket could possibly be so important to Bellatrix. Then his wand hand dropped. He heard gasps from around him as Hermione, Ginny, and Ron all recognized the trademark half-lidded eyes. They were staring at another Black.

"She needs your help," repeated Draco. Harry did not acknowledge him. A cold chill had started at the base of his spine as his mind factored in the memories that they had seen and protested the calculations that were being performed there. Another Black…a child…a secret…his mind froze on Bellatrix's stony expression as she assured her sister that the necklace was a privilege bestowed upon her alone.

As they watched, the second figure moved away. The shadows in the picture shifted, and the little girl's hair glowed smooth and black in the moonlight. Harry frowned. The place she was sitting looked very familiar.

Ginny was the first to understand. She saw Malfoy move…saw the shadow shift away from the hawk, revealing its feathers, translucent and smooth as it perched, frightened and still on the ground behind him. The ferns in the background undulated in the breeze…exactly like the ferns in the picture.

"It's her!" Ginny whispered breathlessly, pointing to the locket, and subsequently to the hawk. Hermione's eyes widened as she too began to understand. Harry's breath stopped in his throat, and, after a moment, Ron let out a strangled squeak. There was a moment that was nearly comedic as all four of them were plunged into the cold pool of reality and they all took the same shocked step back at exactly the same time.

Malfoy stood motionless in between them and the bird that wasn't really a bird. He was half crouched in a defensive position, waiting to spring at the first person who moved toward him. No one did. The shock of this strange realization was too great, and after a short while, Malfoy began to gauge their expressions carefully, searching each mask of surprise for any sign of a threat. Harry imagined the same wordless calculations occurring in each of their heads. Their wands had been forgotten by their sides as they all tried to deny the inevitable conclusion.

Draco seemed to come to the decision he had been contemplating. Seeing no immediate danger from any of the four, he turned and nodded to the hawk. It hopped back closer to the ferns, but Malfoy spoke to it firmly.

"Now!" he insisted. "They're the only ones who can help us!"

Slowly, smoothly before their eyes, the contour lines of the bird of prey twisted and contorted, until they were all staring at the live version of the picture in the locket. The little girl looked out at them with questioning, terrified eyes. Harry stumbled back into a breathless Ginny. The resemblance to both of _them_ was staggering.

Draco took the little girl's hand and led her forward, slowly…trembling. The others took an instinctive step back. They all understood now to a point, but only Harry had the entire picture. Only Harry had been inside enough memories to recognize those sharp facial features, and the jet-black hair.

"Harry, this is my cousin, Electra," Draco said cautiously. He grimaced as he anticipated the reactions to his next words...

"Electra Riddle."

_A/N: I know, I know, but bear with me, please. The next chapter is where the real twisted part of the plot is revealed...Thanks for waiting so long._


	15. Chapter 15: A Hawk's Tale

There was a clatter as four different wands dropped to the ground, and the four onlookers pushed and bumped heads and bumbled around stupidly to pick them up again. Not one was able to take their eyes off of the dark child in Draco's shadow. Not one was able to find enough air to respond, or enough of any language to be able to say something intelligible. The little girl remained immobile, her eyes bouncing from one wizard to the next, judging their movements and gauging their reactions. Draco hovered over her almost like a father over an infant. He had no wand, but it was clear to all that he would fight for her.

It was Hermione who found her voice first. "You…you're Bellatrix's daughter?"

The child gave only the slightest flick of her sleek black hair, her dark eyes never blinking as she stared Hermione down. Harry recognized the stance. He had been in it several times over the past few years. The girl was in fight or flight mode. He put down his wand in a gesture of good faith. No one else followed suit, but Draco relaxed visibly when he saw Harry's wand disappear into his pocket.

"You're…_Voldemort's_ daughter?" It was the inevitable question.

She nodded again, slower this time. The silence in the forest suddenly seemed tangible. He looked around him shocked, realizing for the first time how vulnerable they were to attack from any angle as they stood around, oblivious to anything else but the child before them. If what she said was true, and others knew about her, they were open to attack from either side. The ministry would jump at a chance to hide the horrible news of an heir to such recent disaster, and the Death Eaters…Well, everyone present knew what Death eaters were capable of.

Reacting to Harry's sudden interest in their surroundings, the other three moved in closer.

"We should probably get out of here," said Ginny, dazed.

Draco nodded slowly. "I was thinking the room of requirement," he said uncertainly. "She'd be safe there. She'll tell you everything you want to know."

There was a sharp exhale of protest from behind him. He turned on his heels.

"You _will_," he demanded.

Harry tried to think quickly…tried to think at all. Voldemort's daughter was standing in front of them, and he was actually contemplating sneaking her into the castle! He looked around at the other faces. They were shocked and expressionless.

Finally, Ron shrugged. "What else are we going to do? We can't stay here all night, and I've _got_ to hear this story."

That seemed to settle the matter. Harry pulled his invisibility cloak from under his robes and handed it to Draco warily. It had been a very long time since he had trusted someone so quickly, and this _was_ Draco after all…with the daughter of the worst dark wizard in history. He silently hoped that it wouldn't turn out badly.

"Put on the cloak," he insisted. "It'll hide you and the girl."

"Electra," corrected Draco.

"Yeah…Electra," mumbled Harry. She looked at him almost gratefully from under her sleek black locks before Draco pulled the cloak over her and she disappeared. Harry felt a moment's panic before Draco's voice rang out from his left.

"We'll follow you."

They made their way back to the castle, careful not to move too quickly or make too much noise. It was very late, and the hallways would be empty, but none of them wanted to risk a chance encounter with a teacher. Harry quietly regretted leaving the Marauder's map in his trunk. They were limited to only sight and sound to avoid detection, and neither of those senses would do any good if Peeves had really wished to sneak up on them.

But luck was on their side, and they made it to the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy without any unexpected disruption. There was a moment's pause as Harry tried to decided exactly what to ask. Finally, he paced in front of the blank space of wall, and thought hard.

_I need a place to hide…Voldemort's daughter._

_I need a place to hide Voldemort's daughter._

He couldn't believe what he was thinking.

_I need a place to hide Voldemort's daughter_.

An ancient looking door appeared out of nowhere in the blank space. They entered cautiously and Draco removed the cloak. They all stared again at the little girl as she came into view, obviously hoping that she had been only a bad dream. She had changed into a hawk again for the trip, but she quickly became human again as Draco stared around at their surroundings. They were in a small bedroom, about the size of the one that Harry had stayed in with the Dursleys. There was a comfortable looking bed along one side, and a medium sized trunk beside it. Everything was draped in light blue. Harry frowned. He would have expected green and silver, of course.

"I hate green," she said, almost as if she had been reading his thoughts. She spoke with an accent, and Harry remembered that Draco had mentioned Spain.

"How can you…exist?" he asked, unable to form anything more eloquent at the moment as the millions of questions that he wanted to asked crashed around in his head, leaving him with only sentence fragments. She frowned at him and looked reluctantly over at Draco.

"She's scared," Draco explained, resisting her insistant gaze. "She's been in hiding for a long time. It took me forever to find her…more to get her to come back with me, but she will answer your questions." The last part was spoken more firmly, and directed toward Electra.

"But how old are you?" asked Hermione. "You look about five or six! Voldemort wasn't anything more than smoke six years ago! And Bellatrix was in Azkaban!"

There was a pause, and then Electra finally spoke. "I'm twenty-two."

Their jaws dropped. "But how are you so young?" managed Ginny after a while.

Electra looked down gravely. "I…died," she nearly whispered. "When I was six. My mother brought me back."

"But wait!" interrupted Ron. "We're starting in the middle. How is it that you're even here in the first place? No one told _me_ anything about a daughter!"

"That's because there wasn't any record of a daughter!" replied Hermione. "I've been through every book there is!"

"They hid me from the moment I was born," Electra said nervously. "I was just a back up plan."

"A what?" asked Ron.

"Of course!" responded Harry. "Voldemort wanted to do everything he could to insure immortality. What do normal people do to carry on their line?" Electra looked defeated.

"I'm sorry," he stammered. It was very difficult to believe that he was staring at a real live child of his greatest enemy…and that she wasn't trying to kill him.

She sighed. "I didn't know him, you know," she said, suddenly defensive. "I'm not like him. He sent me away when I was just a baby, and I didn't see him again until…well, until he killed me."

Harry froze. "Voldemort killed you?" he asked.

She nodded silently. Draco nudged her. "I think you should start from the beginning," he said forcefully. She let out a resigned sigh, and sat down hard on the bed. Her eyes were distant as she began to speak in her melodic accent.

"Half of it, I don't remember, of course. My nursemaid told it to me before she died, so it may or may not be true." She looked up at Harry, and he realized that she was searching for his scar. Her eyes fixed on it. "I was born about three years before he gave you that." She tilted her head toward his forehead and then looked away. "I was a secret. He didn't want anyone to know about me, so he sent me away. I don't remember where exactly…only that it was someplace cold all the time. My nursemaid stayed with me, and she told me things about it later. She said I was three when my mother came to find me the first time. She said my father was missing, and that I was the only thing that she had left. She took me away, down south to a place where it was hot all the time. We were in the desert. She taught me things…spells…powerful curses. The first thing I ever learned was how to torture." She looked up in sudden alarm. "I didn't know what I was doing! I practiced on animals and insects. I thought I was making them dance!"

Harry remembered his nightmare…trying to go back to the first spell he'd learned, and finding only the Cruciatus curse. Could he have been dreaming of Electra? She continued.

"She would disappear for days at a time. She said she was looking for my father. Then one day, she didn't come back for weeks and weeks. I was almost six. I barely remember." She drew a deep breath and seemed to be preparing herself for the next part. "I remember when she finally came back though, because she brought him with her. He frightened me…I thought he was a snake."

There was a collective intake of breath. If Electra was telling the truth, then that would have had to mean that Bellatrix had succeeded in bringing Voldemort back only two years after his attempt's to destroy Harry had backfired. If it really was the truth, this was the first that anyone had ever heard of it. But then, why had it taken another eight years for him to make his appearance, and why had he needed to exist in the body of another?

"He didn't want me at all anymore. He took me to a dark room. I remember my mother was crying and pleading with him, but he wouldn't listen." Her eyes were darker, brooding. They bore an expression that should never have appeared on a child so young. "She called him 'My Lord.' I remember that, and he laughed at me and told me that I wasn't going to make him immortal…or something like that. I was so scared that I couldn't move. I just looked at him."

Harry heart sank into his stomach. He knew exactly what she was describing. He had been in that memory only a few weeks ago, as had Ron and Hermione. He looked around at them. They had grasped hands, and both wore a pale, sickly expression.

"He tried to use the killing curse," he said. It wasn't a question. He knew the answer…had, in fact, relived the answer in the Pensieve.

She looked up at him defiantly. "Tried!" she said incredulously as she pulled at her robe angrily, exposing the skin just below her left collar bone. "He killed me! I died!"

Everyone stared in awe, but it was Harry who seemed to go weak at the knees as he stared at the small lightning shaped scar on her chest. He was, at this very moment, face to face with the only other person in the entire world to survive the killing curse.

"But something happened to him too," she volunteered, puzzled now. "I think the spell sort of...reflected off of me. Part of it got him too." She looked up hopefully at Harry. "Does that make any sense?" Words failed him. It made more sense than she understood, but his voice was beyond function. He was thankful for Ginny when she became the first to recover her speech.

"But if he killed you, how are you here today, talking to us?" she asked.

A pained expression washed over Electra's face, and seemed to continue down her spine. She shivered.

"My mother brought me back…" she breathed deeply. "With her horcrux."

It was Harry's turn to shiver now. "With _her_ horcrux?" he asked.

"Yes," Electra persisted. "_Her_ horcrux. The other half of _her_ soul." She looked absolutely miserable, and very near tears. "That's what I am right now. I suppose that my real soul died when I stopped growing older."

There was a long silence as everyone let the information settle in. They stared, unable to look away from the little girl with the Death Eater's soul. She didn't _seem_ evil to them, but Harry couldn't even begin to imagine a part of Bellatrix's soul that could possibly be good.

Ron broke the silence with an attempt at humor. "Well, I guess we were right!" he said as lightheartedly as he could. "Bellatrix really did make a horcrux."

"But if Bellatrix used up her horcrux to bring you back to life, then how is it possible that she's still alive?" asked Hermione, trembling.

Electra had turned as pale as any of the Hogwarts ghosts. "There was another horcrux," she admitted, her voice coming out no louder than a squeak.

"Is it the locket?" asked Ginny.

Electra didn't have to answer. Harry had carried around a horcrux long enough to become familiar with the gloomy, weighted down feeling that accompanied it. The locket did not hold a piece of a soul. Electra shook her head, confriming this fact.

"It couldn't have been the locket anyway!" interjected Ron. "If she's alive right now, that means she's already used it. Why would she be running around looking for a used up horcrux?"

"I don't understand, then," wailed Hermione, frustrated. "If it's not the way for her to live forever, then why would Bellatrix want to find the locket so badly?"

Electra let out a low sob. "She was looking for me," she confessed.

"But we saw one of her memories. She had her sister Obliviate all her memories of you! She didn't want to think about you anymore! Why would she need to find you now? Unless…oh!" Hermione clasped a hand to her mouth. "You're a horcrux too, aren't you?"

Electra shook her head, pulling her knees up under her chin, rocking back and forth slightly on the bed, and looking once again as if she were about the break into tears. She took a very long time to respond, and when she did, her voice was hoarse and barely audible.

"I'm not her horcrux," she managed. "She didn't need another one to come back…My mother…she's _my_ horcrux."


	16. Chapter 16: Sacrifice

Confused silence dominated the scene. This was beginning to sound more like the daughter of his enemy…someone who could kill another person…someone who could rip their own soul in half…someone who would trust such a large part of themselves to a ruthless murderer. This was the tale Harry had been expecting.

Electra flinched, as if the silence was causing her pain, but she did not attempt to fill it with idle excuses. Her brow furrowed and more tears escaped her huge dark eyes. She seemed to be waiting for the blows to begin, and, as Harry looked around, the look on each face seemed to hint at a great desire to attack the little girl where she sat. He reacted simply to avoid the possibility.

"You made a horcrux." It wasn't a question. She had just admitted it. She nodded in weak agreement, staring towards the window to carefully avoid the hostility in each person's eyes. Her jaw tightened once, and her eyes flitted momentarily to Ginny. There was great pain in them. Ginny met her gaze with what seemed to be defiance and anger.

"Who did you kill to make your horcrux?" she asked. Her voice reflected the revulsion in her face.

Electra stared over at Draco, whose features were suddenly frozen in disgust. He urged her on without meeting her gaze. She let out a weak sob before staring towards the window once again.

"My brother," she whispered.

"Brother!" came Hermione's incredulous response. She was on her feet in an instant with her hands on her head in frustration. Harry and Ron both understood her reaction. They had witnessed her endless hours of pouring over every aspect of the Black family history that could have led to a conclusion such as this, and not only had she been unable to uncover the all important fact that Voldemort had managed to create one heir, but two. TWO!

But Hermione's stealthy movements were too much for Electra. She gave a startled cry and jumped into a defensive stance. Before anyone understood what had happened, Hermione was flying across the room. She slammed into the far wall and came to a crashing halt in the corner, wide-eyed and stunned, but conscious. Ginny wasted no time at all. She was up in a flash with her wand pointed at Electra. The little girl tried to roll out of her line of fire, but Ginny's aim was infallible.

"_Expelliarmus!"_ she shouted.

It was only then that she realized the flaw in her disarming spell. Electra was not in possession of a wand. She hesistated for only a moment, trying to understand what had just happened. Draco took advantage of the pause. In an instant, he was on his feet, diving toward Ginny, toppling her and knocking her wand from her hand.

"Wait!" he yelled as both Harry and Ron's wands appeared, but Harry had already reacted and Draco was flying to join Hermione on the other side of the room, the victim of a non-verbal repelling hex.

Harry lurched instinctively towards Ginny, but he found his entire body suddenly frozen in mid-step and he thudded uselessly to the ground beside her. Ron made a 180 degree turn to point his wand toward Electra, who could be the only one responsible for the mysteriously random spells that were proving frighteningly effective, but he met her terrified gaze and his wand was suddenly knocked violently from his hand.

"Electra, no!" Harry heard Draco yell. From his immobile position on the floor, he saw Ginny go for her wand. Draco was suddenly up again and leaping for her. Harry couldn't even let out a warning shout before she was knocked to the ground once again with Draco pinning her arms to the floor. Fury and self loathing clouded his vision. How had he been so stupid? He had let them in the castle!

But once Draco had secured Ginny's arms, he stopped where he was and fixed the panicked little girl with a very serious gaze.

"Please, Electra, stop!" he begged, and his tone caused Ron—who had been preparing himself to attack Malfoy—to stop in his tracks. "She wasn't going to hurt you! She was just thinking! She's like that! She doesn't know how stupid she looks!"

There was an offended gasp from Hermione. Draco looked back quickly in apology, but Ron was already trying to hide a shrug of agreement. The look he received in response was scathing.

Electra's wide eyes were still flitting quickly from Ginny to Harry and back again, but no more strange spells seemed to manifest themselves, and after a few tense seconds, her shoulders slumped, and she let out a resigned sigh. Harry's body suddenly became soft again, and he fell to the floor. Electra's eyes did not leave Ginny's face as she slipped into a sitting position once again on the bed. Harry, sensing some mysterious tension between the two, moved carefully in between them, hopefully protecting Ginny from whatever strange powers Electra had.

"I'm sorry," she wailed, and there was repentance in her voice. "I haven't been around wizards—nice wizards, I mean—very much. I just…react."

Draco still had Ginny's arms pinned to the floor. He stared down at her and apologized before he let her go, knocking her wand further away as he pushed himself into a standing position. She glared at him, and Harry felt the fire of her anger from where he stood. He silently hoped that Draco had a good explanation for everything. If he didn't, it was highly unlikely that he would make it to Azkaban. Harry supposed Ginny had a great number of hexes that she was dying to try on him before justice could take its course. He wrestled to hide his pride.

"She's a Sayer," Ginny hissed, her furious glare alternating from Malfoy to Electra. Draco nodded cautiously, his hand held out, palm forward in a sign of peace.

"Please, just…listen to her story," he stammered breathlessly.

Harry looked around at his stunned friends. Ginny had moved into a crouch, but had not risen from the floor. Ron had travelled the length of the room to help Hermione, who was now standing, testing an ankle that was probably twisted. No one seemed opposed to listening. Harry nodded.

Draco moved over to sit by the little girl. He nodded confidently, and Electra began the final part of her tale with a reluctant sigh.

"Twins," she said finally. "I was the youngest of twins, born three minutes after my brother. His name was Scorpio. We were both sent away. I grew up with him. He was my only comfort in the cold. We spoke in our own language, and we lived in our own world. Our nursemaid didn't understand us…we were too close." Her eyes were welled with tears. Harry saw Hermione shiver, probably wondering how her tale could end in the death of her own twin. "He couldn't do the things that I could do…the spells…the things my mother tried to teach us. He was slow. She yelled at him and called him strange names. At night, I tried to teach him."

She sniffed, and Harry saw the tears that had been threatening begin to fall. "He tried so hard, but he couldn't do it. We were only five years old. How was he supposed to understand what that meant?" She looked around angrily as if one of the listeners could answer her question, but when she received only shocked, blank stares, she quickly sank back into her jaded memories.

"When she went away, I tried to make him understand. I knew her thoughts. I knew what would happen to him if he didn't learn, but he wouldn't listen. He said that I could be the one with magic, and he would be strong and protect me." She exhaled loudly…a sound that expressed the irony in her voice perfectly. "When both of my parents returned, I suppose I was the strong one as well. I saved him. My father knew I was the one with the magic, and he killed me first. When the spell backfired, he was gone. He couldn't harm my brother."

She sighed and the look of sad wisdom that appeared on her face had no place on that of such a tiny child. "My mother brought _me_ back with her horcrux…She would never have done that for _him_."

"Fat lot of good that did him if you were just going to kill him later," Ginny's reply cut through the room like a razor leaving venom as it passed. Harry frowned at her, puzzled at her animosity. Electra winced, but did not protest. She continued instead.

"He was gone again, like before…with you," she pointed at Harry. "But he wasn't dead. She knew that of course, just like she knew that she would bring him back, and that he would want us dead again. I suppose it was a horrible decision in her head…what she thought she had to do…to teach me one last thing before she went away again."

There was an ominous silence as they all slowly came to the final conclusion. Bellatrix had taught her daughter how to split her own soul. The finality of that image came down like a guillotine in each listener's imagination. Harry watched as each blade came crashing down, causing a twitch or a shudder to pass through everyone in turn. He grabbed Ginny's hand. She was looking sickly at the floor in front of the bed.

"But you still had a choice not to kill him," she said quietly. "Even if Bellatrix had threatened you with death. I would rather have died than kill any one of my brothers." She looked up at Ron, who held her gaze without blinking.

Electra's tears became sobs. She leaned into Draco, who held her protectively like Harry had expected Ron would do for Ginny in such a situation. He grimaced. Even after hearing that Electra killed her own family…her own twin brother, Draco still felt the need to protect her. Harry didn't understand. He waited in frustration for her excuse, already half convinced that no reason would be enough to sacrifice her own blood.

"I didn't know what I was doing!" she sobbed. "I didn't know there was such thing as a killing curse! She called us into lessons one day, and she told us that we would be learning how to disarm. I wanted so much to be good for her…to prove that I was worth the half of her soul that she had lost on me. I pointed my wand."

Her breath was coming in ragged gasps now.

"I said the words she told me to say…Avada Kedavra."

No one breathed. They looked on, knowing exactly what had happened to Electra's tiny innocent twin brother. Electra sounded as if she were choking on her own tears, but she continued gravely.

"When I saw what I'd done, I begged her to bring him back. She said I'd have to do…strange things. I was willing to do anything. Anything at all that would make him stand there by my side again, and smile at me, and promise that he would be strong for me!" Her tears stopped completely then, and her face drained of all color and emotion. She was lost completely in the horror of the moment.

"You can't imagine…You don't want to imagine the things you have to do to make a horcrux. I wouldn't have been able to…The blood…" Both her hands clenched into tiny fists as she struggled to find the words to finish. "I thought I was bringing him back. That was the only way I was able to do the things I did. It took me years and years to understand why it didn't work—why I was strong enough to kill him but not strong enough to bring him back. When I finally found a book about horcruxes...When I realized that my mother had tricked me…"

She stopped, unable to finish. She had turned an alarming shade of pale green, and as everyone there stared at her in disbelief, Electra leaned over the opposite side of the bed and vomited. No one could blame her. Everyone must have been thinking about doing the same thing.

The shock lingered for all of the listeners, filling the room with tangible silence that no one found the strength to break. Everyone was struggling with the terrible images that had been newly implanted in their minds, but Harry was the only person in the room who truly understood the consequences of Electra's tale. Only Harry had been able to hear Dumbledore's final conversation on the other side of death where he had explained the horrible obligations of being a horcrux. The final line of the prophecy meant only for him rang in his head like nails on a chalkboard.

_Neither can live while the other survives…_

Voldemort had accidentally left a piece of his soul inside of Harry in his failed attempt to take his life. It was for this reason that Harry had come back from the killing curse that final night in the Dark Forest. While he had remained Voldemort's horcrux, he remained just as immortal as Voldemort himself. The only solution had been to walk willingly into his own death.

That meant that for everything to finally truly end, Electra was going to have to die...and die willingly.


	17. Chapter 17: The Legacy of Three

**This is a long time coming, but I would like to thank all of you who have left reviews. I apologize for taking so long to thank you all, but this was my first fan fic, and I didn't know exactly how things went. You guys have made my day a hundred times, and kept me going.**

* * *

"So the memory we saw of Bellatrix going crazy in Malfoy Manor must have been right after she had…become…a Horcrux, not made one!" Hermione's voice was contemplative.

Electra sat beside Draco, looking ill and staring helplessly over at Harry, perhaps gauging his strange reaction.

"And the memories that Harry told me about…the ones Malfoy's mom obliviated made her forget that she ever _was_ a Horcrux," added Ginny. Malfoy listened carefully, hearing it all for the first time. He had seen the trunk, of course, but not the memories.

"Voldemort must have made her marry Rodolphus, then, after he hid the twins and gave her the locket," finished Ron. "She sure didn't look like she wanted to marry him in the memory of her wedding."

Harry nodded in agreement, silently running through the seven memories—Electra's story explained them all—Narcissa's memories at least—the useful ones.

He winced as he recalled the last strange memory, and suddenly he remembered Professor McGonagall's explanation of Unawares. "Electra?" he asked. She was already staring at him. "When Voldemort…killed you…had you ever seen yourself before?" She looked confused. "You know…in a mirror, or a reflection?"

Her lips trembled as she stared Harry down. "No," she replied. "We were kept in the dark much of the time. I didn't see the need for a reflection." She flinched. Harry did too. So there were such things as Unawares.

Sympathy welled up inside of him for the little girl whose life had been so miserable that she had died—well almost—without any idea of who she was. His heart burned even more with the knowledge that, now, even knowing who she is, she would have to die as nothing more than her mother's penance. The thought was horrifying.

"No!"

She was up again in an instant, causing everyone to jump, but this time, she did not use magic. She simply stood up on the bed with a pouting glare that somehow seemed to belong perfectly on her six-year-old face. Harry suppressed a grin. He half expected her to cross her arms and stamp her foot in preparation for a temper tantrum. He had no idea what had caused her reaction.

"She can go back to Azkaban!" Electra protested. "She doesn't have to die! _I_ don't have to die! I won't die for her!"

"Electra, what are you talking about?" asked Hermione, utterly confused, but the little girl's eyes were fixed stubbornly on Harry's face as at slowly dawned on him what was happening. His expression changed from amused confusion to one of almost reverence.

"She's reading my thoughts," he explained, amazed.

"And yours!" snapped Electra, breaking her lock on Harry's eyes and glaring over toward Ginny, who was frozen in shock, eyes wide, as if she had just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "None of the spells you keep thinking of would stop me if I really was who you think I am, you know," she continued mysteriously. Ginny blushed crimson.

"But how…" began Ron. Hermione silenced him with a loud intake of breath.

"Of course!" she exclaimed. "Ravenclaw's heir!" Five faces frowned at her in confusion—even Electra. She rolled her eyes and continued. "Remember the memory where Bellatrix and her sister were all kids? They were learning about their lineage! They were learning that they were distantly related to Rowena Ravenclaw! Bellatrix's daughter would have that same lineage, of course, and Ravenclaw was rumored to have become so intelligent that she could read thoughts!"

Ron toyed for a moment with this new information. "So, that would mean…" he mumbled almost to himself as the pieces fell slowly into place. "That Electra is…the last heir of Ravenclaw?"

"And the last heir of Slytherin," added Harry solemnly, unable to overlook the darker side of her gene pool.

"And Hufflepuff," added Hermione quietly, observing Electra's reaction.

"WHAT!" The first reaction came from Ron.

"Hufflepuff!" The second from Ginny.

"Who's Hufflepuff?" came the subdued question from Electra's place on the bed. All eyes turned incredulously toward her. She blanched.

Hermione continued, sympathetically. "Helga Hufflepuff and Rowena Ravenclaw were two of the most powerful wizards of their time. They're both founders of Hogwarts. Hufflepuff's great, great, great, great…well, you get the point…grandnephew married the great, great, great, great…" Ron coughed and rolled his eyes meaningfully at her. "Well, my point is, their bloodlines merged a long time ago."

She looked around at the others. "I'm sure that Sirius's mum was getting to that in the memory, of course. It's just that Bellatrix, well—interrupted." She glanced uncertainly at Harry, who bristled. Electra gave him a curious stare, but asked nothing. Malfoy's face had taken on the air of a know-it-all. He had obvious already been subjected to his lesson on his "noble and most ancient" ancestors.

"My mother can read thoughts as well…to a point," he said arrogantly. "That's how she kept escaping your aurors." He frowned. "It never worked when she was really upset though…Bellatrix has something like it too. She's really good at occlumency."

"Pity it skipped _your_ generation," mumbled Ron sarcastically.

"In case you weren't listening, Weasley, Electra _is_ my generation!" came the swift retort. Then quieter, bitterly, "It just skips the males."

"What else can you do, Electra?" asked Harry, stopping Ron's snort before it could get him into trouble.

"I…I don't know." She was suddenly uncomfortable being the center of attention. Her mind seemed to have drawn a blank. "I see thoughts. I can do magic without a wand. I'm an Animagus, of course…I don't ever grow old." The last part came out as a question. She was searching now, and she added, almost as an afterthought, "I can talk to snakes."

_Of course_, Harry thought. _What self-respecting heir of Slytherin couldn't?_

"This is all wonderful," interrupted Ginny. "I'm really thrilled to know the talents of the Death Eaters who tried to kill my family and those of their offspring, but it doesn't seem to be getting us any closer to catching Bellatrix again, does it?"

Harry stared at her beautifully flushed face for a moment. She was right, of course. They didn't seem any closer to catching Bellatrix than they had before their unplanned journey into the forest, but he didn't seem to understand her unexplained animosity toward Electra—besides the obvious, of course. Somehow, the obvious had never seemed to bother Ginny, though. Harry found it slightly disconcerting.

"I think we should take everything to the headmistress," he suggested. "There's no use keeping any of it secret. We need as many educated opinions as possible."

Electra seemed to tense at his suggestion. Malfoy noticed, and turned to put both hands on her shoulders.

"If Harry says it's a good idea, then it is," he reassured her. Harry's mouth dropped open. He had placed those words very near the top of the list of things that he would _never_ hear in his lifetime.

"Besides," Malfoy continued. "Harry's been McGonagall's pet since he stepped through the doors. She'd do anything for him. You're perfectly safe."

Scathing, Harry smirked over at Malfoy. "That's right, Electra, _you'll_ be safe," he said in a very controlled voice. "Malfoy's the one who's going to be in trouble when my "pet" finds out he missed his N.E.W.T.s because he was playing around on Spanish beaches."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "That's enough!" she grumbled, stepping in between the two of them, more out of force of habit than anything else. "It's nearly three in the morning. McGonagall's not going to be awake, of course. I suggest that we all get some sleep, and then go to her office first thing in the morning."

All of them, who each bore the tell-tale signs of sleep deprivation—Malfoy and Electra much more than the others—nodded their agreement. There was a moment's pause as they wondered where Malfoy was going to find a bed, but the room quickly obliged and a second bed slid out of the far wall, startling Ron and causing him to fall backward onto it.

Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione said a quick goodnight to Electra and Malfoy—Harry avoiding Malfoy's smug expression as he stepped out into the hallway—and then they made their silent way up to Gryffindor tower. The fat lady gave them a vicious retort as they spoke the password and entered into the deserted common room.

Harry had expected to lay awake long after he and Ron had gone to bed. He had been operating all along under the theory that Bellatrix had been a strange fluke, and that once she was put down again, he could find the peace he so greatly desired.

Now he discovered that he had a new factor to worry about. A new, living, breathing factor with a future that she did not want to lose. He expected that his worried contemplation would take him the rest of the night to resolve, but it seemed he was wrong, and he was asleep before his head even hit the pillow.

* * *

It was Ginny's cold hands that woke him in the morning, poking playfully at his scar as she always did. A smile came immediately to his lips. He could think of no better first view in the morning than Ginny's cheerful grin. He kissed her affectionately and agreed to meet her in the common room in five minutes.

Ron was already up. They dressed quickly and made their way down to meet Ginny and Hermione. None of them had slept more than five hours, and in the daze that each had woken into, it seemed entirely plausible that Voldemort's daughter had been no more than a twisted communal dream.

Their faint hopes were dashed though, when they entered into the Room of Requirement and found both Malfoy and Electra waiting for them. Malfoy was clothed in flawless black robes with the green and silver accents of Slytherin. Harry cast a disgusted glance at the trunk that had appeared with his bed and wished silently that the Room of Requirement was not so good at its job.

Electra was frightened again, and staying very near to her cousin as they walked toward the headmistress's office. Harry felt a strange freedom as they passed by groups of students on their way to and from breakfast, and they stopped to stare, not at him or his scar, but the pale haired young man beside him and his strange, fluttering companion.

They turned into the hallway with the gargoyle that marked the entrance to the headmistress's office, avoiding a group of gawking fourth years, and nearly ran headlong into Neville Longbottom, who was taking animatedly about his N.E.W.T.'s with exactly the person they had come to see. Professor McGonagall gave them a quick look, turned back to Neville, and then did a strangely graceful double-take.

"Oh!" was all she managed before she fell backwards, and Neville had to jump to catch her. His eyes were wide as they focused on Malfoy as well.

"What are you doing here?" he asked stupidly. Malfoy gave him a disgusted look and ignored him entirely.

"Professor McGonagall," Harry interjected, pushing ahead to pull her upright. "Could we talk in your office?"

Professor McGonagall nodded weakly, her eyes moving from Malfoy to Electra. Harry could see her taking in Electra's sleepy eyelids, her sleek black hair, her falsely at ease expression. He had an idea that she was already drawing her own conclusions about the little girl before her. They did nothing to help her balance, and Harry had to catch her once more as she turned to the gargoyle and whispered "_Skiving Snackbox_" with a shaking voice. Ginny laughed quietly and followed her up.

Once they were in the office with the doors safely closed, Professor McGonagall sat down weakly in her chair and turned first to Malfoy.

"Where on Earth have you been, young man?!" she admonished in a tone that was so incredibly familiar to them all that they could not help but smile.

Draco struggled to find words. He seemed to be falling back into his old school role and looking desperately for someone else to fight his battles. "I…I was…" he stammered, but it was Electra who finished.

"He was looking for me Headmistress," she said, suddenly more confident than they had seen her last night. "In Spain, where I was hiding. He had to go alone, or he never would have found me."

Professor McGonagall seemed torn between the temptation to punish Draco and the necessity to unravel the mystery that the child in front of her presented. She decided on Electra.

"And who might you be, my dear?" she asked in the tone she had reserved for small children. Electra smile calmly. "I believe you've already guessed that, ma'am," she said politely. "Only you don't believe it could be possible…it is. I am."

Professor McGonagall seemed to deflate suddenly, and Harry had to run forward to catch her again as she feel out of her seat. He pushed her gently back into a seated position as her mouth stumbled and clawed for the words that her mind would not release.

"How…what…who…"

Electra waited patiently. Professor McGonagall looked from person to person in utter shock.

"Explain, please," she finally managed.

Hermione started to say something, but Electra stopped her. "Please," she said. "Let me?" It was a request, not an order, and Hermione ceded without insult. Electra continued.

"I was afraid to come here. I don't like wizards with power. I didn't think you would be any different from my mother or father…or their friends, but I can see that you are good—really good." Her brow creased as if this puzzled her much more than it should.

Professor McGonagall's brow bent as well. "You can…_see_?" she asked, strangely out of breath.

Electra smiled. It was a strangely beautiful smile—the kind that could convince anyone of anything. Harry was reminded morbidly of the young, handsome student that had once been human enough to be her father. He shivered.

For the next hour, they listened silently as Electra told her tale to the headmistress, pausing at times to allow for questions, and at other times, answering them before they had even formed in their old transformation teacher's mouth. The little girl seemed oblivious to the expressions of horror and disgust that formed on the headmistress's face when she described exactly why Bellatrix was alive now. When she had finished, a strange, undecided silence fell on the office.

"Well," Professor McGonagall admitted painfully after a very long time. "I have absolutely no idea how any of this can lead us to Bellatrix."

The disappointment was thick.


End file.
